


A Teaching Game

by otherscott



Series: EXO Strip Club AU (scau) [4]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: (kinda), Alternate Universe, Character studies, Established Relationship, Learning to Dance, M/M, Marijuana, Music, New York City, Strippers & Strip Clubs, a hyperactive cover band called jongdae and the heartsnatchers, gay friend groups, strip club au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13259886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherscott/pseuds/otherscott
Summary: It takes a village to teach Jongdae how to dance, or how to do anything else.





	1. press restart

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, old and new ♡ i’m otherscott and i wrote a sequel to a fic that got more attention that i ever could’ve imagined, called i never can relax. i left that fic almost exactly two years ago, and ever since then i’ve been figuring out how to reintroduce the characters. this fic is the result of that. i never stopped writing for this AU, i just wasn’t posting much of it, other than a sehobaek fic called magic that is currently spiraling out of my control in a fun way (lmao)
> 
> i tried to write a teaching game in a way that was understandable to everyone, even those who haven’t read the first fic. i want this to work by itself as well as being a sequel of sorts, so don’t be afraid to only read this fic or read this first or whatever you’d like to do. the characters are the same as always, they’ve just grown in the years they’ve been gone. dae’s twenty-four and yixing is twenty-nine (don’t remind him).
> 
> as always i have songs for each chapter. for this fic i'm putting the song title as the chapter title~~ so this chapter's song is press restart by walk the moon, from their album "what if nothing" which was a huge inspiration for me when writing this fic.
> 
> thank you so much for clicking on this link. happy new year~ i hope you enjoy yixing trying to teach jongdae how to dance. ♡

Jongdae had expected bigger things for himself ever since graduating from undergrad two years ago. He knew trying to get a music career to take off in the middle of New York City wasn’t going to be easy, but surely...surely there was more than this. He was two years out of college with barely anything to show for it, just a three-man band of friends with full-time jobs and a body of original solo work that was aging faster than Jongdae was. He had come here years ago to chase dreams, but now reality had set in and he was exhausted from running for no reason.

Two years out of college he didn't expect to be working the same janitorial job. Jongdae wanted to blame that on his love for Galaxy, in spite of all its seedy strip club sleaziness and constantly shifting workforce. He had met wonderful friends there and he didn’t want to stop seeing them every day, even though the work was tiring. Besides, Yixing was still there. Jongdae was helplessly attached to Yixing’s side, and Jongdae couldn’t see that changing any time soon.

They had been together for three years, and Jongdae had moved into Yixing’s apartment as soon as he left school. In those two years Jongdae had effectively made the apartment his own, and picked up as many of Yixing’s habits as he could fit into his brain. He was happy there. Their tiny, twelve-months-a-year Christmas light adorned apartment had become the safest place in the entire city. Jongdae could fit his keyboard and all of his music equipment there. Yixing had enough pillows and fluffy blankets to fill the space and make every inch safe for horseplay and the frequent dramatic flop. It was home, of course. Jongdae tried to keep all those warm thoughts in his head as he entered through the front door on a hot summer night and instantly saw that the window was open and the thin plum ikat blanket hanging in front of it was billowing in the breeze, halfway outside of the apartment.

Jongdae cursed and rushed over to the window to collect the blanket and pull it back inside. He yanked it down and away from the window, and whined as the motion tore off some Christmas lights from the ceiling. “Damnit!” He took the lights off the blanket and tried to hang them back up, and burned two fingertips when he grabbed a lit lightbulb by its glass. “Owch,” he said tiredly as he dropped the light. It hung in the air lopsidedly and Jongdae glared at it.

“Yixing, where are you?” He called into their apartment. “The lights broke off, kind of.” Jongdae found that an interesting way to say ‘I broke the lights’. He sighed at himself and plopped down on the couch, uninterested in trying to fix anything. His hands seemed to have a bad touch today. He stopped clenching the plastic bag in his left hand and reached in to pull out the cheap headphones he had gone to the store to buy.

He was not strong enough to rip the plastic package open. He pouted as he called out towards the bedroom. “Heeeeeeeeey!” He didn’t get an immediate response so he threw himself onto the couch and laid there. It was humid inside, even though the air conditioner was on and the window was open. It was probably because the window was open. Jongdae was too lazy to get up and close it.

Yixing stepped into the room a minute later, shirtless as he always was, and Jongdae wailed angrily upon seeing him, which made Yixing laugh. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You weren’t here,” Jongdae whined, and he realized how stupid he sounded as soon as he said it.

Yixing threw his hands up and Jongdae whined again at the gesture. “Am I not allowed to pee?” Yixing asked him.

Jongdae sighed. “No, you have to stay right in front of me at all times so I can always see you,” he said facetiously.

Yixing quirked an eyebrow at him. “Did you just...are you trying to watch me pee?” He cocked a finger gun and shot it at the space between Jongdae’s upwardly curved eyebrows. “Did you find the headphones you wanted?”

“Ohh, yeah, well they’re the right brand at least.” Jongdae waved them in his hand. “I can’t get this open, can you open it please?”

Yixing grinned and almost tripped over a pillow on his way over to Jongdae. He recovered wobbly and sat down on the couch, then grabbed the package and started tearing at it. Jongdae sat up and aired out his shirt. “Hey, you can’t open the window that far when the blanket hangs there. It was almost down the street when I walked in the door.”

“Pfffft! Oh no, the poor blanket.” Jongdae watched Yixing’s careful hands pull the tape and plastic apart and he felt dazed. Yixing fished the headphones out and put them in his hand. “Don’t let me touch these, I’ll tangle them in a second.”

“Heh, I know it. Thank youuuu.” Jongdae took the headphones and nuzzled his head onto Yixing’s neck. “I’m wasting my time with these. I need to save money to get a new set of studio headphones but instead I keep buying and breaking these cheapo earbuds every couple of weeks.”

“Save money and let me use these then,” Yixing said.

Jongdae stared blankly ahead as he thought about that. He could try to put extra money away but he wasn’t making much, and he had gotten too romantic about the idea of quitting his night job. He even called it his night job in his head to distract from it being his _only_ job since being the frontman of what was shaping up to be a cover band didn’t get him anything.

He wanted to make a living singing and playing piano, and rocking out whenever he could, but he couldn’t make it any more than a dream. Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Jaehwan made some money playing cover gigs but that was mostly just for getting their name out there, he wasn’t getting much money from that. He felt like it all went back into Chanyeol’s equipment and renting the studio they practiced in.

He was thinking about his life again. He needed to...stop doing that. He was thinking too much lately, not the introspective kind of thinking that led him to write music, but existential thoughts and worries. Those led to nothing but more worries. It was all making him feel very small.

Yixing didn’t seem to notice Jongdae’s head heavy with thoughts, probably already used to the weight. Jongdae felt hot and got up to close the window. “I wanna keep the air conditioning in here.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. It smelled dank in here. We gotta go to work soon y’know,” Yixing glanced up at Jongdae as he kicked his feet up on the table.

Jongdae looked out blankly through the window, and noticed his glasses were crooked on his face when he saw his reflection. He hated going to work when it wasn’t even dark yet.  “Mhm, yeah. I guess I’m ready. You have to put clothes on.”

“It’s too fucking hot for a shirt.”

Jongdae wasn’t going to argue with that. He turned back around and thought about telling Yixing he wanted to quit his job. The thought festered for a moment as he stood there. He couldn’t just say that. Kris had given Yixing a little more power just a few months ago, Jongdae couldn’t do something troublesome like quit, especially since so many guys had been leaving lately. He worried Kris would take away that little sheet of paperwork that said Yixing was his co-manager. Yixing seemed kind of proud about that paper.

The extra money was nice, but Jongdae always thought Yixing made an awkward co-manager. He was extremely scatterbrained and tended to let everyone get away with a lot, so Jongdae wondered what Kris saw in him other than their seven or so years of friendship. Yixing made friends easily, at least, and he had no trouble demanding people to do things. Kris had probably just wanted someone else to deal with juggling everyone’s shifts, and Yixing found that easy enough.

Hiring people, though, that was something else entirely. Jongdae hoped Kris could do that himself. They were still trying to find a full-time replacement for Jaehwan’s bartending job, and whenever he thought of that, Jongdae didn’t want to pile on the resignation papers. Yixing glanced up at him and Jongdae knew he had no idea what Jongdae was thinking about.

“Let’s go late, you’re like my boss anyway,” Jongdae tried.

“I’m not your boss! I’m like a friendly supervisor. I can’t touch _your_ hours though, you have to be there early to do all that mopping stuff.”

“Ahh...I know.” There was nothing Jongdae could do about it at the moment, so he accepted it. He went to work every night, and found that he was too busy to spend time daydreaming up melodies like he wanted to do. He was thinking too many words and not enough tones.

Flipping his little joke calendar over to the tenth of July reminded Jongdae that he and Yixing had been engaged now for a little under a year. It was a warm, fluttery feeling every time it was the tenth of the month - Yixing had made him truly love that number. Jongdae vacillated in between wanting to get married sometime soon and wanting to keep taking their time. They had been sitting around for so long and his parents and friends were always nagging at him, but Jongdae didn’t really care, since he and Yixing were never in a rush and they were enjoying their lives enough already. Yixing was the kind of guy who saved money for years to buy an XBOX and then played the same two games for the rest of his life. He was never in a rush to do anything, and Jongdae had grown to find that very comfortable.

Yixing probably shouldn’t have told him “a wedding band doesn’t change anything” on the night he proposed. That had gotten them so comfortable that they were apathetic about putting wedding details together. And then when Jongdae thought about how apathetic they were about getting married, that just made him fall in love with their relationship all over again. He knew he was lengthening the process every time but whatever! They were young, and Jongdae thought fiancé was as nice of a word as husband was.

Naturally his coworker Tao told Jongdae that he and Kris had gotten engaged on a night when Yixing wasn’t at work. Jongdae knew that Yixing really wanted to make fun of them once it finally happened, because they had been dating for longer than any other couple they knew. They seemed like they had been in love forever, so Jongdae wondered what took them so long. Yixing was convinced it was because Kris was awkward and afraid of rejection, and Tao was the type to wait for as long as he needed to because he wanted to be given a ring.

Jongdae didn’t tell Tao any of that, just congratulated him, and laughed hard when Tao said he was the one who proposed. Yixing had been kind of wrong, kind of right. Jongdae rushed home that night and was amused to find Yixing still awake at four-thirty in the morning.

“You’re supposed to sleep on your nights off,” Jongdae told him, and Yixing waved a hand at him from his spot sprawled over the couch. Jongdae saw Yixing’s eyelids looked dark and he refrained from scolding him further.

“These are my living hours now. We can go to bed if you’re tired though.”

“Yeah, work is so long on these nights when there aren’t lots of people to talk to...” Jongdae moved his glasses up so he could rub at his eye. “Chanyeol wasn’t there tonight either.”

“Oh god. Is he okay?”

Jongdae thought about how completely miserable Chanyeol had been these last two months. His boyfriend Minseok had quit his job and a few weeks later broke up with him, and just like that the most important person in Chanyeol’s life was carried off in the wind. Jongdae didn’t know how long Chanyeol was going to need to process it. “I don’t know. He’s probably the same as he was.”

“That’s...not good,” Yixing said simply, and Jongdae moved over to the couch to sit down on Yixing’s legs to make him make room.

“I know, I should go see him tomorrow.” Jongdae looked over at Yixing not bothering to keep his eyes open, and then remembered what he had been excited to say. “Hey, I know something that’ll make you laugh.”

“What’s that?” Yixing opened his eyes to look at him.

“Tao and Kris got engaged the other day.”

“What!?” Yixing let out a huffy breath and Jongdae had to laugh. He laughed again when he saw how deep Yixing’s pout was. “I can’t believe Kris would propose without telling me first.”

Jongdae had to laugh even harder, and he felt sorry for his neighbors in that moment. Four-thirty in the morning wasn’t a good time to be loud but Jongdae didn’t know how to shut it off. “That’s hysterical. No no no, guess fucking what. Tao was the one who proposed to him.”

 _There_ was the signature Yixing cackle. “Dude! Tao got fed up with him! I honestly would’ve guessed Tao would _leave_ him before he proposed.” Jongdae covered his mouth with his hand as he laughed. “He’s like the exact kind of guy who wants to be proposed to.”

“For real. Tao told me he was tired of waiting, hah.”

“That’s amazing.” Yixing nudged Jongdae’s thigh with his foot. “That’ll make us look so fucking stupid, if they get engaged and married within our engagement.”

“I had that thought earlier, too. Tao said he wanted to get married fast and they have the money to do it so they’ll probably get there before we do.”

“I mean, I personally don’t care, but now people are going to make fun of us,” Yixing worried. Jongdae blinked at his lover, who was twenty-nine years old and still fretting over cheeky dorks at a strip club ridiculing him, and thought he was cute.

“They already do,” Jongdae shrugged. “And all of our friends have shit we can make fun of them for too, so let them try.”

“Heh. That’s a good outlook.” Yixing pushed himself up and Jongdae was impressed by his core strength for a second, then melted when Yixing put his head on his shoulder. “Let’s go to bed. I’ll bother Kris in the morning.”

“Okay.” Jongdae was happy to get to sleep, and as he fell exhausted into the bed he thought about how he had wasted another day since he still had yet to tell Yixing about how he wanted to quit his job. It had begun to feel like more of a certainty in his head, so he wanted to get it over with. Every time the moment presented itself, though, he backed out, afraid of letting Yixing down. He would have to do it eventually. He’d let himself sleep on it.

The next day he felt no different. He woke up in their warm bedroom, with the sheets kicked halfway off of his body and his lover wrapped around his arm, and he groaned as his first waking thought was that _today was the day_. He had been worrying for months, so he had to do it. To clear his mind, and give him more time to work on his music, so he wouldn’t start giving up on his dreams like he had been fearing.

What a terrible way to start the day, with his _thoughts_. He plugged his ears with his headphones and played a Copeland album to drown himself out. He went out to the living room to sit in front of his piano, and felt like he was deflating as he stared at the white keys and just wanted to play what was playing from his earbud.

Jongdae found the right key and imitated the song he had heard so many times. He was good at this, he was good at playing what he was familiar with. He wanted to get out of this slump and stop remixing other people’s work.

After an hour he convinced himself that playing something on his piano would be better than nothing at all. He tapped out a song he had written years ago and liked how easy it was on his fingers. He played through a few more songs he had written for that EP, and then stretched his arms out at his sides, and felt like he was doing something he had done hundreds of times before. He didn’t dislike his early work. He had just grown tired of it.

Jongdae played a poppy Walk the Moon song he liked and laughed as he saw Yixing dance into the room out of the corner of his eye. “Hey songbird,” Yixing said to him, his voice still deep with sleep, and Jongdae gave him a little smile.

“Hi there.” He thought about it, then stopped playing the song and put his hands in his lap as he looked up at Yixing. “I want to quit my job at Galaxy.”

Jongdae made himself say it before he could chicken out again. He saw Yixing staring blankly at him and he tried not to panic about it. Yixing blinked and then pursed his lips. “O...kay. Are you sure?” Yixing pinched his own arm and Jongdae smiled sourly at the gesture. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for...a really long time.”

“Okay...” Yixing’s mouth hung open and Jongdae hated how he looked like he was trying not to make an expression. “I guess...I can’t blame you for not wanting to clean a strip club anymore. You’ve been there longer than some of the dancers have.”

“Yeah,” Jongdae agreed. That was a promising direction Yixing went in. He kept his hands in his lap and stared up at him.

“You know like everyone and their moms has quit lately and we’re still trying to fill their spots,” Yixing told him. Jongdae nodded. “Can you stick around until we find someone to replace you?”

“Ohh, yeah,” Jongdae said. “That shouldn’t be too hard, my job has a lot less qualifications than all the others do...”

“Yeah, we can find someone to do it.” Yixing closed his eyes and raised his hand to rub at his temples. “We’re still trying to find someone to take Jaehwan’s job.”

“Well he was like, the most talented guy in the whole place.”

“He mixed drinks. Tell him to stop writing you dialogue,” Yixing said flatly, and Jongdae let out a sheepish laugh.

“Sorry. I know you guys are still having trouble with that.”

“And Minseok took off months ago to help his friend with their dance studio and we _still_ can’t find someone to replace him.” Hearing Minseok’s name in Yixing’s voice reminded Jongdae that he hadn’t checked in on Chanyeol yet. Chanyeol was probably no less miserable than he had been but Jongdae needed to text him anyway. He tried not to let his distracted thoughts show on his face, since Yixing was still talking to him. “I know Jongin and Sehun are pissed at me for giving them his extra hours.”

“I know...”

“We’re kind of struggling right now,” Yixing said plainly, and Jongdae felt bad. “And if you weren’t there I’d miss you so much.”

Then Jongdae felt terrible. He had kind of guessed that would be coming but it still hurt to finally hear. “I live here with you,” Jongdae said.

“Yeah, but you’re still like the most amusing part of going to work. Ahhh, fuck.” Yixing sighed heavily and moved around Jongdae to sit down on the couch. He sat there for a moment, his eyes half-lidded and exposing nothing. Jongdae stared at him.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t think there was ever like, a _good_ time to tell you that.”

“Yeah. Well.” That didn’t lead anywhere and it made Jongdae nervous. Yixing groaned a little. “I don’t want you to start resenting a job you’re tired of.”

“Thanks...” Jongdae said quietly.

“How are you going to help pay for our rent, Jongdae?” Yixing blinked at him and Jongdae felt stupid for feeling his heart pop up into his throat.

He couldn’t help but worry about the rent, too. “I-I don’t think that’ll be a problem, I have money saved up, and my parents miiiiight help me...operative word is ‘might’ with ten i’s...I’ll have lots of free time t-to work on my music and I’m hoping that that might...that might help the band get more jobs and I’ll make money that way.”

Yixing still had the same blank look on his face that he pulled out when he wasn’t impressed. Jongdae frowned at him. “You guys still don’t have a bass player for live performances, right?” Yixing asked. “You said your friend from school moved away.”

Jongdae felt his heart sink a bit as he was reminded of the main issue facing their band right now. Chanyeol could play the bass fine for their recordings, but he had to be behind the drums when they performed. Jongdae’s school friend Eliza had been popping in here and there to help them out but she had gone back to live with her parents a few months ago, and their band had been stuck to their studio ever since.

Jongdae told himself he was projecting when he thought Yixing’s blank face looked smug. “Why can’t you play bass for us?” He asked, to wipe the expression away.

Yixing whined. “I play that acoustic guitar just fine, that’s all I got.”

“Jaehwan can do that too, and he’s taller.”

Yixing narrowed his eyes at him and Jongdae instantly burst out laughing. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”

“I don’t know why I said that. I think you’re hotter than Jaehwan.” Jongdae saw Yixing mouth ‘thank you’ at him and he snorted. “You play with us sometimes anyway. Ahh, it can’t be that hard to find someone to play bass for us. I’m sure Chanyeol knows tons of people who play instruments. We might have to...hire someone.”

Yixing groaned at him. “That costs money.”

“I know, I know, it costs money to make money, sometimes...” Jongdae felt a little discouraged and he raised his hand to his face. “At least if I pay for that, I’ll split the cost with the other two. It wouldn’t be a big deal, really,” he raised his face to frown at Yixing, who just stared back at him.

“I did get a raise,” Yixing said after a moment, and Jongdae couldn’t help but bring his hands to his face again, this time to cover a smile.

“I can’t believe you’re being this accommodating,” Jongdae said.

“I mean...I don’t think you’ll make much money playing little gigs with our bartenders,” Yixing said honestly. “Especially in the middle of the city where it’s already so saturated. I think if you want to be a full-time musician it’ll really fuck up our money situation.”

Jongdae pouted at him. “I don’t have to work just with my band, though. I can do lots of things. I can write music and sell it to companies and get those royalties. I can write things for commercials, too. I could score someone’s low-budget computer game. And if I can find a company that’ll pick me up then I can do session work for their artists. I really wanna play piano for an album that sells a lot, hah...I think I could make it work,” Jongdae said earnestly.

Yixing watched him, and Jongdae tried not to be nervous. He wanted to just be glad that Yixing didn’t immediately tell him no. “It’s...a lot of wishful thinking,” he said after a moment.

“I’m willing to put my pride aside and keep playing cover concerts with the guys too, those don’t pay too bad,” Jongdae brought up.

Yixing cocked his head to the side as he considered it. “I guess it wouldn’t be a mess.”

“Yes, good, say that.”

“You’re due to try putting that electronic music degree to use,” Yixing said, and Jongdae laughed.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. I realized I’ve been out of school for two whole years and I’m still not really doing much with my music. When I was in school I always thought there’d be a lot for me to do once I was done, y’know? It’s just...proven to be even harder than I thought. But I _have_ to try.”

“I can’t save your job for you, so if you end up flopping you’ll need to get a day job,” Yixing told him.

Jongdae pulled a sour face. “I’m not going to flop. I’m going to keep trying and trying until I get what I want.”

“Okay.” Yixing let out a decisive sigh. “I’ll support you.”

Jongdae felt his lip quivering a bit and he jumped out of his piano seat to land at Yixing’s side and snuggle him close. “Thank you so much...thank you...I knew you would...well...I hoped you would. I didn’t know what you were going to do at all.” He breathed into Yixing’s neck and laughed at how Yixing’s whole body spasmed from the air. “Sorry. Th-that’s why I took so long to tell you, I thought you might tell me I couldn’t quit.”

“I can’t tell you that. _Kris_ might tell you that but I wouldn’t.”

Jongdae blinked. That...was true. He hadn’t actually quit his job, he had just told his fiancé that he wanted to. Doy. Apparently his nervousness showed on his face because Yixing tried to backtrack. “I mean, I don’t think he could tell you you couldn’t quit your job. I don’t think that’s legal. I should read that PDF he sent me...” Yixing tucked his legs underneath himself threw his right arm over Jongdae’s shoulders.

“You’re probably right,” Jongdae said. “Kris is a huge pushover, anyway.”

“Yeah, and he loves you. He’ll let you do what you want.” Yixing lifted his hand and put it on Jongdae’s chin to direct his attention to him. “I’m gonna be so bored without you there.”

“I’ll try to visit as much as I can. You work late at night and I’ll be free then. Also, uhh, you live with me?” He grinned and liked the way Yixing tangled his fingers in Jongdae’s hair.

“Kris might not want you to leave ‘cuz Chanyeol might follow you,” Yixing brought up after a quiet moment. Jongdae remembered that he hadn’t checked on Chanyeol in a few days, and he got up to retrieve his phone from the little table by his keyboard.

“I hope Chanyeol wouldn’t follow me. He has more friends at Galaxy than just me.” Jongdae drafted a quick text to Chanyeol, simply to ask Chanyeol how he was doing, and sent it. He blinked, typed a second text that read ‘I want to quit working at Galaxy’, and sent it before he could convince himself to delete it. “I’ll let him know what I’m planning so he’s not caught off guard.” Jongdae sighed as he thought it over. “Fuck, if Chanyeol quit too...nnnno. He won’t do that, not when you guys are still trying to find another bartender. He’s got too big a sense of responsibility.”

“I guess so...he’s been skipping a lot lately, and that half-time guy is no good at all.” Yixing looked at Jongdae and Jongdae could feel his eyes on the back of his neck.

Jongdae sighed and turned to face him. “It’ll work out. You’re just trying to come up with every possible thing that could go wrong ‘cuz you do that like it’s a fun sport.”

“Yeah, and you’re running on pure optimism like you always do,” Yixing said flatly. Jongdae blinked at him and the dimple on the side of Yixing’s mouth twitched as he smiled. “That was nice. That was a nice thing I said. You’re optimistic and refreshing.”

“I’m optimistic and I want to have faith in myself,” Jongdae said. He stared at his phone as Chanyeol’s read receipt appeared, and then he sat down on his piano seat and waited for a reply.

He was left hanging for hours. Chanyeol was being so uncharacteristically difficult to handle ever since Minseok left him, but Jongdae didn’t want to fault him for that. They had been together for over four years, Jongdae knew Chanyeol wanted to marry him...Chanyeol didn’t describe their breakup in great detail so Jongdae didn’t even know who to blame. It was frustrating and causing a bit of a rift in their friend circle, but Jongdae knew it was hardest on Chanyeol, so he tried to be there for him.

Jongdae didn’t get a reply until six, which he found annoying since he had to work at eight, but he would deal with it. He stood in the kitchen and looked at it for so long that Yixing came up behind him to see what he was mystified with.

_What the hell? Come over so we can talk about that. plzzzz_

“Well that’s not _that_ exciting,” Yixing said dismissively, and Jongdae laughed once.

“I don't know what you expected. He’s not very lively right now. There isn’t even an emoji in there.”

“Poor Chanyeol. He’s really going through it.” Yixing stepped around Jongdae to go to the refrigerator and pull out a carton of lemonade. “I need to go see Minseok at that dance studio he’s working at, seriously. I need to pick his brain, I don’t know why he had to take Chanyeol’s soul like that.”

Jongdae groaned low in his throat. “Don’t cause trouble.”

“I don’t want to cause trouble, I just want to talk to him. He’s been my friend for like seven years, I’m not gonna attack him.”

“Hear his side and I’ll go hear Chanyeol’s, then we can put things together.” Jongdae sighed and groped around his pockets for his wallet. “I’m going to go see him and I guess I’ll go straight to work after.”

“Mmkay, I’ll see you there.” Yixing poured himself a glass of lemonade and Jongdae swiped it from him and took a sip, and Yixing smiled at him. “You’re so cute.”

Jongdae was so thankful for Yixing’s inability to be irritated with him for more than a half hour. Yixing was so calm and secure in his own ways that he was supportive of all of Jongdae’s wacky ideas. Jongdae thought they were perfect for each other. In the back of a taxi on his way to Chanyeol’s apartment, he told himself to not get lost in thoughts of how comfy and sweet his life was when there were actual things for him to deal with. Chanyeol wouldn’t appreciate Jongdae’s romantic rambling one bit in the state he was in.

Chanyeol’s apartment building was familiar and hot. Jongdae remembered Chanyeol telling him the air conditioner broke on the second day of summer, and he was surprised it hadn’t been fixed yet. He rode up in the elevator, texted Chanyeol he was there, and made sure to knock loudly once he got to the door.

Jongdae waited again. The back of his neck already felt sweaty and he aired his shirt out, trying to unstick it from himself. He saw Chanyeol’s door open, get caught on the latching lock, shut, and then reopen. Jongdae found the absentmindedness charming, and of course Chanyeol’s messy black hair was cute. He looked like he was blinking sleep from his eyes, and Jongdae thought Chanyeol’s cheeks looked especially fluffy.

“Hey maaaan,” Jongdae sang at him, and Chanyeol gave him a tight face as Jongdae stepped in and Chanyeol shut the door. Jongdae tilted his head and gazed up at Chanyeol, and followed him with his eyes as Chanyeol stepped into his empty looking apartment. He had one hand up the front of his shirt scratching himself, and he glanced around the room as if he were looking for something. Jongdae saw Chanyeol’s little black poodle Toben trot in from the bedroom and instantly break into a sprint when he saw there was company. Toben jumped up on Jongdae’s thighs and Jongdae grinned hugely down at the enthusiastic pup.

“Hey. Sorry for the mess,” Chanyeol said pointlessly, since Jongdae thought it was no less messy than the last time he was here. It looked like Minseok had taken a lot of things with him and Chanyeol was struggling to fill the space. The white walls and wide gray carpet made the room seem bigger than it was. Chanyeol had all sorts of musical equipment and vinyl LPs strewn across the floor, and Jongdae’s eye quickly went to a soft stuffed Iron Man toy that looked well-chewed by the dog.

“Fuck, you should see our place. We’re so much worse and we don’t even have any pets,” Jongdae said as he picked Toben up and held him in his arms. Chanyeol glanced back at them and managed a small smile when he saw them. Jongdae thought the expression was a good start.

“Toben is so mad at me...” Chanyeol said balefully. “I’m not taking him out as much as I should. He’s so mad.”

“Chanyeol, this poodle is smiling at me. I don’t think he cares.” Jongdae smiled sweetly at Chanyeol and snuggled the dog close.

“Ahhh...whatever.” Chanyeol gave up his search and peered over at Jongdae. “C’mere, you’re talking crazy, you know that? You want to quit?”

“How am I talking crazy? I don’t want to be a janitor for the rest of my life,” Jongdae pouted and watched Chanyeol plop down on his futon. Jongdae went over to move away an orange flannel shirt and sit down on the edge of the furniture.

“Do you have another job lined up?” Chanyeol asked him.

“Uhhh, yeah, we’re gonna make our band take off,” Jongdae tried, and when Chanyeol gave him a tight-dimpled look Jongdae looked at the floor and sighed. “How are you able to give me the same exact look Yixing gave me? Right down to the dimple.”

“You surround yourself with dimpled people.”

“That’s a good thing. Anyway. _Other_ than helping our band take off I’ll be writing lots of music, trying to sell it, and getting picked up by a recording company to do instrumental work. That’s what I came to the city to do, it’s time for me to do it.”

Chanyeol blinked blearily and Jongdae wondered if he had just woken up. “You can’t do that while working with us?”

“Honestly? I can’t. Galaxy takes up too much of my time and energy. It’s hard to clean everything a billion times, and interact with that many people every night, and then go home and try to write anything. I’m usually pretty productive during the night but I’m so exhausted these days. I need to get my groove back.” Jongdae gazed solidly ahead at Chanyeol, trying to impart on him his sincerity.

Chanyeol stared blankly at him and didn’t say anything for a while. “All my friends are bailing,” he said finally, and Jongdae sighed.

“You’ve got lots of friends at Galaxy.”

“But my best friends wouldn’t be there anymore. You and Jaehwan were the best part of being there and if you bail on me too then I’ll have to spend all my time making weird small talk with that new bartender kid and being bummed.”

Jongdae hung his head, frustrated with this reaction, and the fact that Yixing had known it would happen. This was so unlike Chanyeol. He was really out of his mind. “Well...”

“I know, I know, I’m being selfish. Fuck! I’m just tired of people walking out on me.” Chanyeol put his elbows on his knees and Jongdae admired the gangliness. Chanyeol ran his hand through his hair. “I feel like I only see you and Jaehwan in the studio or when we’re drinking at his place.”

“Let’s do that more often, then. Let’s just hang out more, it’ll be good for the music and for your head.” Jongdae frowned at him and Toben wriggled to be free. Jongdae set him on the futon and the dog went over to sniff at Chanyeol’s side. “We can make the most of the summer.”

“Maybe _you_ guys could...” Chanyeol leaned back and let out a big sigh. “I feel like I’m deteriorating.”

Jongdae frowned. “You should come over and hang out with us more often. Yixing and I are worried about you, we don’t want you to be alone right now.”

Chanyeol let out a mirthless laugh. “Thanks. I can’t help but be alone.” The frown looked odd and unfamiliar on Chanyeol’s features. “I have Toben. He’s not... he’s not... he’s my dog. I feel like even he’s tired of me.” Chanyeol shook his head. “Man. I don’t know how to live anymore. It’s so hard to get out of the house.”

“Please don’t beat yourself up for being miserable. Nobody is tired of you. We just want you to feel better.”

“Minseok is tired of me...” Chanyeol trailed off, and in the silence Jongdae could hear the wall clock’s second hand ticking away. That was awkward. Jongdae wanted to talk about Minseok, but at the same time he didn’t, and he felt like Chanyeol thought the same. Jongdae didn’t want to go anywhere he couldn’t return from. He kept quiet for a moment and then sighed.

“If you ever need to vent about anything, or verbalize your upset thoughts or whatever, I can listen to you,” he said. He tried to keep eye contact with Chanyeol but Chanyeol glanced away. “I mean it. You can call me in the middle of the night and I’d try to answer. There are a lot of people who want to see you get back to yourself.”

“Thanks...” Chanyeol put his hands on his knees and said nothing more. Jongdae gazed at him, and wondered what was happening in that inventive head of his, then tried to stop. Chanyeol opened his mouth, and Jongdae looked at him. Chanyeol pursed his lips, thought, and then spoke.

“I was seriously gonna propose to him in like, November maybe,” Chanyeol spilled, and Jongdae felt his heart weigh down. “I wanted there to at least be snow. And holiday magic,” he spat the words like they were nasty tasting lies. “I even told my friend from school that his geeky wedding band could play for us. It was set! It was seriously set because he broke up with me in April and I was already thinking about all that stuff then! How much more set in stone can a proposal idea that I planned for months be! I can’t forget.” He scowled.

Jongdae was suddenly hyper-aware of how he had no advice to give. He told himself that Chanyeol wouldn’t respond in a good way to advice right now, so it was for the best. “I’m sorry. I wish there was a way I could...speed it up for you, I guess, like a way to make the year go by fast. I still think...I know you don’t want to hear this. But I still think it’s like being born anew. Like you’re molting and since you’re a big sensitive human it’s painful, but you’ll get through and you’ll be...rejuvenated.” _Jongdae shut up, please shut up._ “Or something.”

Chanyeol looked so still that Jongdae was afraid he might burst out laughing at how stupid he was. “I get what you mean,” he said after a while, and Jongdae threw his hands in the air.

“How...?” He questioned quietly enough that Chanyeol didn’t notice.

“I don’t see how I can possibly be rejuvenated after this, though. I feel like everything that made me _me_ was ripped out from within and I don’t know how to get myself back.”

“It’s gonna suck but it’s gonna take time,” Jongdae tried. “Put distance between you right now and you six months from now and see how that heals you.”

Chanyeol didn’t seem impressed. Jongdae felt like he was spouting bullshit that could make him feel worse and he wanted to stop. “So I just have to wait until I don’t hurt anymore,” Chanyeol said.

Jongdae frowned sympathetically. “If that...comforts you. Then yeah.”

Chanyeol simply stared forward. Jongdae felt like he had done enough. He didn’t know what he was talking about anyway, he hadn’t had his heart broken his entire adult life and he tended to write off his teenage emotions as ridiculousness. Jongdae’s time had been rose-scented for years. He had no business telling someone in pain how they should feel.

He checked his phone for the time, then glanced down to the expectant looking toy poodle at his feet. “Should I take Toben out for a walk?” Jongdae asked.

Chanyeol winced as if he were in pain. “Ahh, you don’t have to do that...I mean...I should take him out. You don’t have to do things for me.”

“Will you go with us, then?”

Chanyeol sighed, caught up in Jongdae’s words. “Sure. I need to get out anyway.” Jongdae pumped a little fist, pleased that had worked. He got up from the futon after Chanyeol did and waited for Chanyeol to bring out a leash.

Chanyeol had thrown a cap over his head while in the kitchen and Jongdae liked the way it smushed his prominent ears down. Chanyeol put the leash on his dog, and let Jongdae lead them out of the building. As Toben peed on a nearby tree Jongdae found his friend quiet, and didn’t know what he could do.

It was just as humid outside as it was in the building, and Jongdae groaned at the heat. “I have to head into work soon,” Jongdae sighed. “It’s still so sunny out. I hate that, I have a night job, so I’d like for it to be at night.”

“Heh,” Chanyeol made a single breathy sound and Jongdae considered it a win. “It does feel stupid going to a strip club when it’s light out.”

Jongdae snorted. “Right?” For some reason he remembered how he needed to call his parents sometime soon and he made a face at himself. The guilt about his job manifested in annoying ways. He kicked rocks as Chanyeol told them what streets to go down to circle around the block.

Chanyeol wasn’t interested in having a conversation with him. Jongdae didn’t like that, and he kept trying, and ended up rambling to himself. As they made their way up the stairs back to Chanyeol’s apartment, Jongdae found the poodle more responsive to the sound of his voice. Jongdae shut the door behind them as Chanyeol went over to the futon and collapsed facedown on top of it. Jongdae saw the deep greens and blues of his back tattoo through the thinness of his white shirt, and he felt fond.

This was the same Chanyeol as he always was. The Chanyeol who Jongdae had been friends with for years, the guy who could play every instrument under the sun and would be willing to teach someone what he knew. His smile still showed all sixty-eight of his blinding white teeth, even if it wasn’t as wide these days, and his clumsy fingers always dropped anything deemed important. Chanyeol used to brag about how he could smile through anything tough.  He was under there somewhere, with his face shoved into a futon cushion. Jongdae stared at his broad back and questioned how he could coax Chanyeol back into his right mind.

All he knew was music, and tireless hours at work. “Maybe after work tonight we could fool around on the guitars and make use of the acoustics in the main room when it’s empty.”

Chanyeol moved his face to the side so he could reply. “Really? At the crack of dawn?”

“I know your sleep schedule’s fucked up already.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t want to be there any longer than I have to. I don’t even want to go in tonight, but I have to, they’re so desperate to have me there tending the bar.”

“That’s what happens when you let Jaehwan quit before you. You became the golden goose, the only goose.”

“‘The Only Goose’. That sounds like a song you’d write,” Chanyeol said sardonically, and Jongdae felt glee as he laughed.

“It does. I love birds,” Jongdae said simply, and he swore he saw Chanyeol’s dimple appear with a smile.

He didn’t say anything for a while so Jongdae sat cross-legged next to the curled up poodle on the floor. He petted the sleepy Toben for a moment and was glad to hear Chanyeol’s voice break the silence. “Let’s go to work early, we might have time to mess with the sound system.”

Jongdae was excited for the idea, and the fact that Chanyeol came up with it. It was a great place to start, and Jongdae was glad to help Chanyeol keep his job. Jongdae brought him to work and felt like they were making progress.

It only lasted for a day. Chanyeol was back to mumbling under his breath and ignoring text messages before the night was over. As Jongdae stared up at his bedroom ceiling the next morning, with a cuddly warm Yixing latched to his side and his head heavy with sleep, he worried he was not the man for this job.

He didn’t know who would be able to bring Chanyeol out of this funk. Maybe Jaehwan was loud and outrageous enough to at least distract Chanyeol for a while. Jongdae gathered them all in the practice studio they rented three times a month, and had them play guitars while Jongdae stared blankly between the mixing table and his piano keys.

Oftentimes Jongdae found his bandmates’ lack of enthusiasm irritating. Tonight, he was able to blame it completely on Chanyeol’s sour mood. Chanyeol didn’t open his mouth unless to tell them they had played something wrong, and Jongdae could tell Jaehwan was getting irritated with him. Jongdae waited for Chanyeol to step outside for some space, and then flopped down on the keyboard in front of him, creating a cacophony of frustration.

Jaehwan let out a single bitter laugh. “He’s a fucking mess. We need him to play with us and he’s acting like he’s on another planet.”

“I know, I know. Maybe we should just record individually tonight ‘cuz we’re not working well together.” Jongdae reached around to his laptop to look for some files. “Or we could just call it a night...if he’s not in an okay place, it brings me down too.”

“Mm, okay. It’s not like we have anything to really practice for,” Jaehwan said as he threw his arms over the front of his guitar. He opened his mouth to say something, then noticed the door was opening, and he looked over to see Chanyeol come in. He glanced at Jongdae, and tried again. “I had a dream the other night where we played some random prom.”

“Hah!” Jongdae laughed once and caught the second of amusement that played on Chanyeol’s features. He saw Chanyeol sit down back at his chair and looked at Jaehwan. “I’m at the point where I would accept that job,” Jongdae confessed, “I’m dying to get on a stage again.”

“I don’t want high schoolers begging at my feet,” Jaehwan said, disgusted at the idea.

Jongdae’s mind was completely elsewhere and he raised his eyebrows. “You know how much money we could make off that? Like, if we found some really pretentious private tech school or something, I bet their administration wouldn’t know what they were doing and they’d pay us way more than we’d deserve. If we asked for it, at least.”

“I shouldn’t have said it,” Jaehwan sighed. “Now Jongdae’s gonna make us play a prom.”

“I mean, if we make money,” Chanyeol considered it, and Jongdae laughed.

“Well, it’s the middle of the summer, so we missed our chance. But I’ll keep it in the back of my mind.”

“I’ll do it if we scam rich people,” Jaehwan said finally. He looked over at Chanyeol, then moved his body to face him before he spoke. “Chanyeol. You should write some angry ‘fuck men’ music,” Jaehwan tried, and Jongdae dug his nails into his own arm to stop himself from laughing. “That might help you get some of that emotion out.”

“I’m planning on writing some things,” Chanyeol said simply.

Jongdae liked the sound of that. “That’s awesome! I’ll play whatever you need,” he offered, and Chanyeol leaned his cheek on his guitar, looking tired.

“Thanks. It won’t get done anytime soon. I don’t know if it’ll get done at all. It’s all just ideas right now,” he said, and he groaned at the thought. He strummed his guitar once and sighed. “I don’t feel great tonight. I think I should go.”

“Great, I want to go home too,” Jaehwan said, already out of his seat. Jongdae pouted but kept himself from saying anything. Nothing they recorded would sound right if they were forcing themselves to play it, anyway. Jongdae watched Jaehwan put his guitar back in its case and he pursed his lips. Jaehwan always acted strange but recently he had been even stranger than usual. Jongdae tried not to think into it.

He looked over at Chanyeol. “I’m going to stay here for as long as I have the room, but you can do what you like.” Chanyeol leaned back in his chair and nodded slowly. He exchanged quiet farewells with Jaehwan and Jongdae looked up to give his tall friend a goofy look before he left.

“Safe travels,” he said. “You can message us whenever if you have ideas. Or even if you don’t,” Jongdae sighed, “you stopped working with us at the club and I feel like I never see you anymore.”

“I got you, I miss you guys too,” Jaehwan said with a toothy smile, and then he left. Jongdae stared after him and couldn’t figure him out. His head hurt enough already, he didn’t need to be thinking into every little thing Jaehwan did, too. He sighed and looked back to the keyboard.

He tapped out a few tunes and his eyes wandered over to Chanyeol packing his things up. Jongdae wondered how Chanyeol could wear a long-sleeved button down over his shoulders in this heat. Jongdae studied the side of his face and the sleepy, puffy look he sported.

Chanyeol was the only person Jongdae ever met who could make a guitar look small. He strapped it to his back and turned around to face Jongdae, his mouth stretched into a flat line. “Thanks for putting up with me.”

“Oh, I love you,” Jongdae said easily.

“Sorry if I fucked you and Jaehwan up. I’m just no good at anything these days.”

Jongdae laughed softly. “You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s fine. I have a lot more work to do than you guys do. I still have like...three guitar guides Jaehwan wrote that I need to translate for my piano. Yaaack.” Jongdae peered at the sticky note on the side of his laptop screen. “And to tell the truth, I still haven’t written anything on top of that song you wrote in March.”

“Ohhh...” Chanyeol stood there with his mouth open, as if he had forgotten entirely. His hand on the doorknob turned. “You don’t have to finish that one,” he said, and he gave Jongdae a stony look. “Love is fake.”

Chanyeol was out the door before Jongdae could even tell him he was an emo dweeb. Jongdae let out a huge sigh and felt his shoulders deflate now that he was finally alone in the room. “Jesus, Chanyeol,” he complained to himself, “so dramatic.” He reminded himself to be sympathetic, and let out a single laugh, since Chanyeol had just been so uncharacteristically negative. When Chanyeol was in a better place, maybe a few years down the line, Jongdae would pick on him. For now, he would let Chanyeol think whatever he wanted to. Chanyeol probably knew a lot more than him, anyway.

A few days later, when Jongdae was mostly sure nobody would try to follow his coattails out the door, he told Kris he would like to quit his job. Kris told him Yixing already let him know days ago and he had been looking for a replacement. All at once Jongdae thought maybe he was moving too fast, but he didn’t want to panic and freak out when he had already gotten this far.

Jongdae promised Kris he’d be at his wedding. He promised his coworkers a lot of things during his last few days at work, and he realized that he had the phone numbers of all these people, so it wasn’t like his social life was ending. It was just becoming less accessible. He hoped that his frequent bouts out partying with Sehun and Junmyeon would keep him in the swing of things. The search for his replacement was a quick one, and Jongdae was free within the week.

Jongdae officially quit his job on July 18th, 2017. Three years (and only a year and a half to his parents’ knowledge) spent at his strip club job and now he was done. He was happy, because he didn’t want to be a custodian for his whole life. It had been a weird college job that spiraled _way_ out of control, but in a wonderful way. He came home that night to find Yixing on the couch practicing the guitar part for that Pixies song he liked so much, and Jongdae felt comfortable, and happy, and right. He wanted to fill his life with as much music as possible and this was a good place to be.

He sat down on the couch next to Yixing and felt the tiredness of the day seep through him. “I can’t believe I don’t ever have to work ‘til 5 in the morning, ever again.”

Yixing barked a laugh. “Don’t try to get a normal sleep schedule, I won’t see you as much!”

“I’m gonna spend my morning hours on my piano now, you don’t have to worry.” Jongdae sighed and looked down at his phone, and noticed his lockscreen was a selfie of Sehun and Jongin pulling ugly faces backstage. Jongdae laughed at it, then laughed again when he realized he didn’t notice it the whole taxi ride home. He was so tired. How did those guys know his password? Those sweet idiots. His friends were so good to him. “A lot of people told me they were gonna miss my singing around the club...” Jongdae grinned and put his hands on his head. “I told them to buy my albums.”

Jongdae liked how Yixing had barely stopped quietly strumming his guitar. “Hah! They fucking better. I’ll start peddling them backstage.”

“Oh god...I’m gonna be big in strip clubs...” Jongdae yawned hugely. “It’s a living.” He melted into the couch as he listened to Yixing wind down. “I don’t know how our neighbors put up with us,” he said sleepily.

“Well they do pound on the ceiling sometimes,” Yixing said.

“Hah, that’s true.”

“It’s because we’re _good_ at being loud. We play a lot of music but it sounds nice of the time,” Yixing laughed. He looked back at Jongdae and Jongdae smirked at how Yixing’s eyelids were dark. “I swear they used to hit the broom against the ceiling a lot more often when I was learning.”

“I believe that,” Jongdae said. He was too sleepy to do much else other than get locked into the couch, and Yixing seemed to be shutting off for the night, so he pushed himself up and went to bed.

Jongdae woke up early that morning, soaked up a ray of sunshine beaming in through the window, and grabbed his phone to message Chanyeol. His first thought of the day was a familiar piano tune. He found a link to the Copeland song he couldn’t help but associate Chanyeol with, and sent it along with the caption ‘good morning fire eater,’ the title, and a gentle nudge. He hoped Chanyeol could take strength from it.

It was early in the morning, probably earlier than Jongdae had woken up in a long while. Had his body picked up on his recent freedom? He hoped he could become a morning person. He looked over at his lover, sleeping like the dead, and told himself not to bother him. Jongdae watched him for a moment and then got up to go into the other room, ideas twitching at his fingertips.


	2. slo dancin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!! i got the most electrifying response for the first chapter of this fic and i just want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my rotting gay heart. you’re all the best motherfuckers i know & the reason i keep writing about these messy dudes. thank you so much for your continued support. (and also for your concern for pcy / snark towards minseok??? it made me weirdly happy ily)
> 
> the song for this chapter is slo dancin' by ricky eat acid! the whole haunt u forever album is scau xing as hell to me
> 
> THANK YOU FOR FINDING THIS PAGE OF THE INTERNET

Jongdae wanted to take his band further but he knew he needed to be writing more original music to do that, and he hadn’t been good at that lately. He spent days and nights sitting in front of his keyboard, waiting for inspiration, staring straight ahead at the blanket covering the wall in front of him, becoming a zombie. This wasn’t uncommon, he had spent years of his life doing this. This was just the first time in his life when he felt like he had no excuses for it.

Jongdae would watch Yixing move around the apartment and live his life while he himself sat in the same place and rotted. He would find inspiration again, sometime, he knew it. It would have to come. He tried to think of old projects he had dropped, hoping there would be something there to improve on.

He got up to go into the bedroom and grab his laptop, and Yixing exclaimed from his spot on the floor. “It moves!” Jongdae laughed him off and opened his computer to look through his old drafts. He played a few files and sat on the bed, searching for something he liked.

After ten minutes he started to think this was a lost cause. “These songs weren’t finished for a reason,” he mumbled to himself as he closed his laptop and brought it back into the main room. He studied Yixing sitting on a pillow on the floor for a moment, and then watched him talk to NPCs in Skyrim. He wondered how many hours Yixing had logged in this game. Then he sat back down on his piano seat and let out a huge groan.

“What’s wrong babe?” Yixing asked easily, without looking away from the television.

“I just can’t write. I need something to write about,” Jongdae said.

Yixing thought for a moment, then paused the game so he could set his controller down and put his hands on his face. “Write about me.”

Jongdae laughed airily. “I’ve written that song twenty times before.”

“I’m sure there’s more to say.”

“Hah...” Jongdae thought it was a sweet idea but it wasn’t really gripping at him, not right now. He sat in his chair with his hand over his mouth, and didn’t notice Yixing was staring at him.

“Can’t you think of something about quitting your job? You just did that,” Yixing brought up, “churn out something anti-establishment.”

Jongdae thought Yixing was hilarious, truly. Just not always helpful. “Let’s put out a punk rock album,” Jongdae muttered after a moment, “while politics are so hot. Aaahh, no, I can’t do that. Nobody knows who I am, they wouldn’t take me seriously.” Jongdae was just thinking stupid thoughts out loud but Yixing bubbled with laughter anyway. “Stop it, don’t laugh at me. I can do things,” Jongdae said. “I just can’t come up with music these days.”

“You should try to redo your old piano songs with all the instruments and dudes you have to play for you now,” Yixing offered.

Jongdae resisted the idea after a moment. “I’d have to rearrange everything I’ve ever written if I wanted to do that, all my stuff was just piano and voice and synth.” He blinked forward at the wall. “I did that for that one EP and it took forever.”

“Jaehwan and Chanyeol play so many things, they could help you.”

“That just seems...that seems...I don’t want to go through all that, I’d rather write new stuff with them. The Bird Behavior project was kind of, that’s my old solo stuff and I don’t want to work on it any more.”

“Aww, I like those songs,” Yixing said, and Jongdae laughed a bit and felt his heart beat, since he liked hearing that.

“I do too. They’ll always exist, I wrote them and they’re out there.” Collecting dust on Bandcamp and Soundcloud. Well, there was that one LP he had weaseled onto Spotify, but he was so much of a nobody that he didn’t think anybody but Yixing and his mother listened to him there. He definitely wasn’t making money from it. “I’m not hopeless, at least,” he said quietly.

He couldn’t take comfort in Yixing scoffing and saying “of course not.” Jongdae lazed around on his piano and barely ate until Yixing had to go to work at night and on his way out the door reminded him he had made rice. Of course. Food was a thing. He had to do things other than playing piano aimlessly. He went to the kitchen to boil water for tea and looked at all the eggs in the fridge.

There were a lot of eggs. Jongdae could probably eat one. He realized how completely drained the day had made him when he noticed he was thinking about eggs and had been for a while. He cracked one open in a frying pan on the stovetop and tried to tune out his brain.

The following week was more or less the same, with Jongdae attempting to turn his existential worry into lyrics or minor chord progressions, and nothing much stuck. He worked out about two minutes of a song that sounded slow and dark, and he wasn’t happy with it. He didn’t want to be writing dark music when he was finally seeing so much sunlight. He woke up one morning with the tune stuck in his head, and he worried he was making himself feel gloomy.

He moved to his piano to play something familiar that would reset his mind. Jongdae promised himself to stay away from somber sounds, and warmed his fingers up slowly. He nestled into Romances sans Paroles, a warm Fauré piece he could probably do with his eyes closed, and played it several times in a row to let his brain completely disconnect.

He lost track of time playing the song over and over again, and smashed his face into the keys when his fingers started to cramp. The dissonant notes that played startled Jongdae to sit straight up and groan at himself.

With a lack of any better ideas, he played a few more Fauré pieces that felt like home, and silently lamented his inability to write anything new. He was resentful and jealous. It was irritating to feel this while listening to his favorite sounds. He wanted to write prettily again; he knew he had it in him. He slammed his fingers onto the keys mid-piece, sighed, and switched over to a song he had written last year.

Jongdae played it once, didn’t feel stirred enough to repeat it, and sat there staring ahead at the blanket on the wall. Oh well. At least he could play classics competently. Yixing came out into the main room a few minutes later, and he laughed upon seeing Jongdae in the same spot he had been sitting in the whole week. “You look like a statue. A statue of a cheerless mall pianist.”

Jongdae was so frustrated with himself that couldn’t even find that amusing. “Go fuck yourself,” he said simply, and Yixing laughed. Jongdae heard the happy sound, thought about how annoying it was that Jongdae was upset with something usually filled him with glee, and then tried to clear the negative thoughts away. Jongdae looked over at Yixing and was surprised to see him fully clothed. “You have clothes on,” he noted.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go over to Kris’ place, there’s a Bayern Munich game on in an hour and he says he has weed. Wanna come?”

Jongdae thought it over. “Doesn’t he have a kid? How can you bums do drugs in the middle of the day?”

“She’s not with him this week,” Yixing replied. Jongdae weighed his options and then sighed.

“Nah, I still wanna try and figure out my shit here...thanks though.” Jongdae found himself thinking hanging out with Kris would be weird right now. He knew it was a stupid, pointless worry but he was making himself think it regardless.

“Okay. I’ll be back in a few hours.” Yixing stood there in place. “I mean, are you sure? I know you’re not having much luck here.”

“No no no, I wrote something, I did...” Jongdae sighed softly. “It sounds like organ music you’d play to make tension on Halloween but it’s something.”

Yixing laughed so easily it made Jongdae jealous. “You’ll get there. Keep at it.”

“Thanks.”

“Try to have some fun, baby,” Yixing told him before he left the apartment, his keys jingling, and Jongdae stared at the door.

Fun. He hadn’t been enjoying himself lately. Yeah, wasn’t this supposed to be fun? The whole reason he wanted to chase after this dream was because playing music was the most fun thing in the world to him. He lost the plot somewhere and wasn’t doing it the right away anymore.

Maybe having the apartment to himself would be helpful. When he was absorbed in his work it was easy to ignore Yixing living his life around him but it hadn’t been so easy this week. Jongdae got up to turn the kettle on and make tea, and when he went back into the room he studied the blanket hanging over the window. It looked kind of loose and Jongdae noticed they still hadn’t fixed the Christmas lights he had accidentally torn down weeks ago.

He went to grab some tape and fix the lights. He stood back to observe his work, found it crooked, and scowled as he tried to fix it again. Two attempts later he found it looked good enough, and he whipped back around to stare at his keyboard.

He had no distractions! He was going to have to try to write something. Jongdae sat at his keyboard, turned it on, and kept the creepy organ song he had been working on out of his head. He wanted something floaty and twinkling, that was what he felt most comfortable with, that was what he liked listening to. He played a few soft high notes on the right side of his keyboard and considered their sound as he tried as many new sequences as he could think of.

He found a tune that sounded nice and fresh, reached to the couch for his laptop so he could record it, and found his laptop wasn’t there. He darted into his bedroom, repeating the notes in his head over and over again so he wouldn’t forget, and he found it and went back to sit down at his keyboard and bring up his recording software.

He got three notes into a recording when the kettle on the stove started whistling. He cursed loudly and jumped out of his chair to shut it up. He nearly burned his right hand grabbing the handle to move it, and he whined and stomped in a circle.

“Owch! Fuck!” The sting hurt more as the seconds ticked by and Jongdae wondered what the fuck he had done to himself. He gripped the kettle with a hot pad to pour water into his tea mug, and he threw a tiny plate over the mug and then flopped down to the floor.

He looked at his hand and his mind felt fuzzy. If he had fucked up his hand then it was the end of his composing for the day. He sighed at himself and tried to recall the melody he had been trying to record.

...fuck. How did that go again? It was no more than ten seconds long but Jongdae had already forgotten it. He flailed on the floor and kicked his feet against the cabinet under the sink. He hadn’t expected writing at home to be so...futile. He had written plenty of songs in the living room before, he had even managed to write one while sitting on Yixing’s bathroom floor back in the day. But now the place was so familiar that it wasn’t arousing anything fresh in him. He stood up, grabbed his tea, and moved back to his keyboard, grumbling all the way.

After some tapping away at his keyboard he found the melody he had forgotten, and he made sure to record it on his laptop. As soon as he was done he felt like he had exhausted all of his creative juices for the day. Ugh. He grabbed his laptop and started to search through his folders for something, anything that could possibly give him inspiration.

The only fascinating thing he found was a rock cover guide of the Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Don’t Phunk With My Heart’ that Jaehwan had recorded by himself, almost definitely while drunk. It was amusing and stupid and ridiculous, but not exactly what Jongdae wanted to take inspiration from. It was a nice reminder that Jaehwan was fun and worth putting up with, at least. He remembered the one time they had performed this in front of a crowd and then vowed to never perform it again because the crowd hated it. He missed their band being fun like that.

Jongdae sipped at his tea and felt like he was fighting an aimless battle. If he wasn’t in the right mood to create then nothing was going to happen. He threw himself down onto the couch, groaned into the cushions, and took his glasses off to set on the table. He laid there limply, tiredly, pathetically, until he completely exhausted himself with his thoughts.

There was noise in the room that woke Jongdae up. He pushed himself up an inch to peer over his shoulder and see a blurry Yixing shuffling his shoes around by the door. “Ohh, hey,” Jongdae croaked, his voice low with sleep. Yixing gave him a tight little smile and stretched his arms above his head as he came over to him.

“Hey there. Working hard?” He asked, and he swooped down to kiss Jongdae on the cheek before Jongdae could whine at him.

“No. I barely worked on anything at all and I took a nap.” Jongdae groaned and grabbed for his phone, and he frowned when he saw he had no notifications. “Jaehwan said he’d get back to me about playing a show at that bar he’s working at but he hasn’t messaged me in like, days.”

“Is he still being a little troll?” Yixing tried to sit on the couch, processed that Jongdae wasn’t moving his feet to make room, and smoothly slipped down to the floor.

“Yeah, he is. He’s nuts but this is the first time it’s irritated me with it. He’s not really excited about playing with us these days and like, Chanyeol is something else entirely, too.” Jongdae pouted. “They’re being so difficult. Maybe that’s why I’m malfunctioning, the guys who always fix my music aren’t helping.”

“Maybe you should stop trying to force it ‘til they get back into their heads.” Yixing shrugged, and then reached up to pull on Jongdae’s sleeve. “Hey, I have something new that could distract you.”

“What’s that?”

“Kris told me that dance studio Minseok’s working at in Soho is open now. He said that Tao spends a lot of time there, the rooms are really big apparently. Wanna go check it out? I wanna talk to Minseok anyway,” he said, and Jongdae blinked sleep from his brain.

“You want to take me to a dance studio? I’d be so useless there,” Jongdae laughed.

“You’re not useless! You’re funny and even if you don’t say or do anything you’re good for decoration.”

Jongdae smirked a little at that. “You wanna go?”

A dimple appeared on the side of Yixing’s cheek. “Yeah, yeah. I haven’t really danced and kept my clothes on in a while, I kind of just want to twirl around.”

“Hah.” Jongdae blinked again. “I can’t deny you your right to twirl. Okay.” He rolled over and got up from the couch, his legs wobbly as he stood. He grabbed his glasses to put them on, and he went into his bedroom to change into something less embarrassing than his Pikachu shirt. He went to stand in the doorway and saw Yixing was still sitting on the floor. “Do I need special shoes or something?”

Yixing grinned at him. “No, I feel like you might have to take them off. Wear socks. Wait, don’t wear socks.” He made a face at himself. “No, wear socks. If you slip you can take ‘em off.”

Jongdae let out a single laugh and went over to grab at Yixing’s shoulders. “Okay then, I’m ready. Wait, do you have to work tonight?”

“Not ‘til eight, and it’s just a bit after five.”

Jongdae groaned at himself for sleeping for so long. He hadn’t quit his job to do that. Yixing stood up and pulled Jongdae into a hug, and Jongdae was happy to go soft in his arms. “I’m so mad at myself today. You have to fix me.”

“Heh, okay. I’ll charm my way into our own room, and I’ll try to teach you how to dance.”

Jongdae scoffed. “Don’t make me even angrier at myself, damn.”

“Even if you suck you’ll be so cute. C’mon Dae, we’ll be all goofy and loosey-goosey, it’ll be fun.” He ruffled Jongdae’s hair in one hand and knocked Jongdae’s glasses off-center with his arm by accident, didn’t notice, and went towards the door, his hands groping in his shorts pockets for whatever. Jongdae followed him to the door and glanced back at the broken Christmas lights before they left.

Jongdae watched Yixing attempt to hail a cab and thought about what he was going to say to Minseok, if he was even there. He didn’t have have anything rude to say, he was mostly just confused. He was friends with Minseok, but he thought his close friendship with Chanyeol superseded that somewhat. Jongdae only knew how Chanyeol was hurting so he was afraid he might speak with a very biased heart.

He was probably working himself up over nothing. Jongdae didn’t know what it was Minseok did at this place so he might not even be there. The cab Yixing caught was small, so they huddled together in the backseat.

They had to drive through the city to get to the neighborhood the studio was in, and Jongdae leaned his head against the leather seat in the cab and stared out the window at the bright signs and flashing screens. New York was gaudy and loud even during the day, but Jongdae liked that. He thought it looked much more magnificent at night.

“Yo, I could definitely go out clubbing with our friends now that I have nights off,” Jongdae mentioned to Yixing as soon as the thought entered his head.

Yixing laughed. “So many of your friends work with me, though.”

“I have other friends. Jaehwan has some nights off, I’m sure. Cam’s free most of the time, I could hang out with her. And Junmyeon doesn’t do anything.”

“Does Junmyeon even go clubbing anymore?”

“Yeah, he totally does! He just doesn’t drink and looks awkward the whole time, but he’s fun. You’ve definitely been out with us before.”

“I can’t remember shit,” Yixing said, and Jongdae agreed with that. He nestled his head onto Yixing’s shoulder and breathed slowly.

It started to rain as they entered Soho, and Jongdae sat up to get a better view of a rainbow flag hanging outside of a shop. It was really cute and trendy there, Jongdae liked it even if he didn’t go out of his way to come here often.

“I need to get out more, I feel like there’s still so much of this city that I haven’t seen.” He held his breath as the taxi lurched around a corner and started speeding down a narrow, wet street. Jongdae observed the people rushing in the rain outside, and noticed less lights and colorful signs as they went on.

When the cab stopped at a tea shop on a corner and declared this was the place, Yixing paid for the ride and ushered them out onto the street. The air was hot so the rain felt nice on the back of Jongdae’s neck.

Jongdae spun around trying to find the right direction to go in, and Yixing stood there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the trendy tea shop they were in front of. “This sign says you can drink ‘snarky tea’ here,” Yixing spat with a little laugh. “A snarky tea bar at the end of same street as a private dance studio in Soho, agh, we’re at Gentrification Station.”

“I think it’s down the street, is that the little hanging sign?”

“Yeah this is, this looks right. Kris said it was townhouses down here.”

Jongdae peered around the street and motioned for Yixing to follow him. It was more quiet than the streets Jongdae had watched from the cab, and a lot less colorful. The gray sky and falling rain made the area look tired, and it felt tight from the traffic coming towards and from the nearby tunnel. They got closer to the studio and Jongdae swore it was darker, and he scowled up at the towering hotel a block down casting a shadow on them as they rushed into the building and out of the rain.

The lobby was thin, dark green, and well lit, with a line of leather-backed folding chairs sitting across from the help desk. Jongdae looked farther back into the building to search for more rooms as Yixing went to the desk to find someone working there.

Jongdae walked in a circle in front of the chairs and wondered if they were going to have to pay for this. They had a Minseok discount, he guessed. He heard Yixing trying to explain to the person at the desk that they didn’t want to take any classes, and perked up when he saw one of the doors down the hallway open. Minseok stepped out, looking kind of frantic and distracted, and Jongdae wailed after him. “Hey, you!”

Jongdae was yelling so Yixing turned around to give him a look, and he glanced in the direction Jongdae was looking at to see Minseok, then told the person at the desk they found what they were looking for. Minseok blinked at them, and the panicked expression on his face melted away when he realized who was there.

“Whoa, you guys look different during the day!” Minseok said brightly, his gums showing as he smiled. He looked over his shoulder and then back to them. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re here for you to teach us how to dance,” Yixing told him. “We’re taking your private lessons.”

“Ohh, I don’t teach anything at all yet,” Minseok said, “I handle a lot of paperwork and do whatever they need me to do.”

“Wow, you don’t even teach here?” Yixing asked Minseok, and Jongdae could tell Yixing didn’t know how rude that sounded. He snorted a little, enjoyed the way Minseok’s expressive eyebrows danced and scrunched at the quip, and went up to hug Minseok.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in foreeeeever,” Jongdae said, and he giggled as Minseok squeezed him tight for a second. He didn’t feel any different. He had such a friendly aura that Jongdae felt foolish he had felt awkward about seeing him.

“Yeah, oh my gosh, I feel the same.”

“I quit Galaxy too,” Jongdae said with a laugh, and Minseok’s mouth dropped open shortly and then broke into a smile.

“Wow, really? I always wondered when you’d break,” Minseok chuckled, “you’d get there early, leave late, your job looked so gross sometimes and drunk people still hit on you even though you always wore clothes. Your job looked hard.”

Jongdae appreciated hearing that somehow, and clutched his chest with his hands. It was nice to be acknowledged for all the nauseating things he had endured over the years. “Yeah, it was. It was kind of fun anyway.”

“I really like cleaning to be honest. I have to clean a room that hasn’t been mopped in a while. Taking care of these kind of studio floors is so time-consuming, hah, it’s not so bad though.”

“That shit’s not entertaining huh? You gotta do that twice with two different soaps huh?” Jongdae didn’t know why he sounded like that and he laughed while Minseok nodded sheepishly at him.

“Don’t attack me like that! I’m still learning, I find it easy though.” He huffed once. “I do want to dance more.”

“So do we, can we have a room?” Yixing piped up. “You can dance around with us too.”

“Hah, maybe when I’m done.” Minseok reached up to rub at the back of his neck, glanced at the front desk, and pursed his lips. “Yeah, sure. I have some freedom to do things here. I think there’s only one class here right now and it’s in the big room. Here, follow me,” Minseok waved his hand and Jongdae trotted after him excitedly.

Minseok brought them down the hallway, turned right, and led them to a purple door. He opened it a few inches to peek inside, then stepped inside and shut off the lights. “Ohh, can you take off your shoes? It’s raining, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is,” Yixing replied as he and Jongdae kicked their shoes off and set them on the lowered part of the floor. Jongdae glanced from the normal looking floor to the dance floor to the normal floor again. He didn’t know the right terminology to call it by and he felt goofy and amateurish.

The room was painted lavender and was almost twice the size of their apartment’s main room. Jongdae found the shiny mirrors that covered the entire left wall impressive, and he looked to the black handrail bar opposite the mirrors and figured that was used for dancing somehow too. He sat down and saw Yixing run onto the black floor to instantly go limp on the ground with happiness. “It’s so silky and nice. Like walking on water.”

Jongdae couldn’t help but giggle at Yixing being a mess on the floor. Minseok grinned at them from the doorway and tapped his fingers on his leg. “I’m letting you do this ‘cuz there aren’t many people here, hah, but if a class I forgot about comes in you gotta move.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Jongdae said, and he shot a sunshine grin up at him. “Thank youuu.”

“No problem, it’s fun to have people I know here!” He smiled. “If you make a habit of coming here I’m going to make you pay for it, though.”

“We can manage that,” Jongdae said. He watched Yixing push himself up with his hands and snorted a little.

“Cool cool. The sound system’s here,” Minseok motioned at a little sign by the door that showed wifi information. “It works by Bluetooth too so if you connect your phone it should work. And the lil remote’s over there,” he pointed towards the opposite wall and Yixing went over to where he was directing. “I’ll come back when I’m done cleaning stuff,” Minseok said with a smile, and he closed the door behind him.

“Play something fun, Jongdae,” Yixing told him as he handled the remote. Jongdae connected his phone to the room’s sound system and scrolled through his music.

“You want something to dance to?”

“Yeah, just something lowkey, I didn’t stretch or anything.”

“Your feet are gonna get tired before you even go in to work,” Jongdae remarked as he turned on the Ricky Eat Acid instrumental album that he knew Yixing was familiar with. He watched Yixing’s mouth stretch into a weird smile as he recognized the music, and when Yixing started moving towards him hips first Jongdae burst out laughing.

“You’re a mess,” he told Yixing.

“Dance with me,” Yixing tried.

Jongdae stood up and leaned back and forth on his feet. “I’m probably going to fall flat on my face. I don’t look like someone who can dance, huh.”

Yixing looked Jongdae up and down and made a tight face. “Well you can’t dance in _jeans_ , Jongdae,” he scoffed.

Jongdae instantly wailed at him. “Well it’s kind of late to hear that now! Why didn’t you tell me when we were at home?”

“Sorry, it didn’t cross my mind! Ahh, you’re gonna be so stiff. Take your pants off,” Yixing tried, and Jongdae laughed airily.

“We just got here, I don’t want to get us kicked out right away.” He stepped gingerly on the vinyl floor and went over to Yixing, and Yixing gave him a tight smile as the short song playing switched into the next one.

“Show me what you can do,” Yixing told him as he took a step back.

Jongdae laughed sheepishly and stood there for a moment. “All I know I’ve learned from watching you at work, and you don’t want to see me do that.” Jongdae watched Yixing cross his arms over his chest and smirk, and Jongdae breathed once before hopping around excitedly to the spastic guitar filling the room.

Yixing laughed heartily seeing the movement and it made Jongdae stop jumping in place and whine at him. “This is a hard song to dance to!”

“It’s what you chose,” Yixing told him.

“Doesn’t that further prove that I have no idea what I’m doing?” Jongdae pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and scrolled through songs. He found another one, by the same artist but not from the same album, and pressed it on.

It started with swelling synth, and once more Jongdae hopped back and forth like that was the only way he knew how to dance. He got faster and faster as the song rose in tempo and he could hear Yixing laughing at him again. “You’re so fucking silly, you keep putting on these songs that are impossible to dance to. This is like, dubstep.”

Jongdae wanted to commit to his hopping so he said nothing. When the beat dropped and the instrumental went insane he didn’t know what to do so he stopped, and he smiled breathlessly as Yixing laughed once at him, and then started moving in his own way.

Yixing moved more fluid and smooth than Jongdae could ever imagine himself moving. He moved like a current of energy went through his arms and across his shoulders to leave out the other hand. Jongdae watched him twirl around and he knew he would never be able to do that, not without years of practice. He whined and laughed as he sat down on the floor to watch the show.

Yixing was a good dancer. Jongdae knew that before Yixing sold his soul to a gay strip club, he had spent years in a dance crew in Brooklyn, actually dancing. He also knew that Yixing had a lot of bad feelings and baggage regarding that place, so Jongdae hadn’t seen a whole lot of old footage from it. It was always a treat to see his fiancé move, with or without his clothes on. After so many years Jongdae thought he liked seeing him with clothes on most of all. He appeared more confident that way and that was handsome on him.

Jongdae watched Yixing pop his shoulders around and he tried to replicate the motion in his seat. He wasn’t able to do it like Yixing did, he looked at himself in the mirror and thought he looked stupid. He pushed himself back up onto his feet and then tried to twirl around on one foot.

He spun once and landed on both feet wobbily. Yixing stopped what he was doing to watch Jongdae and grin. “Yes, you’re good at that. Ballerino as fuck. Do it again,” Yixing egged him on, and Jongdae laughed and spun once more.

He felt dizzy almost instantly after doing it. He put one hand on his head and squinted at Yixing. “How can you move like that and not get sick? I mean, you’re gonna tell me ‘practice’ or ‘experience’ or something so don’t bother, but really. I just threw my whole head off kilter by moving in a circle.”

“It’s all balance, which you don’t really seem to have yet. Maybe I shouldn’t have made you do two in a row,” Yixing said. “Look at you spinning around like a top, though.”

Jongdae winked at him. “You know it.”

“Oh, I walked right into that one.” Yixing moved behind Jongdae and put his hands on his hips. They looked at their reflection in the wall-high mirrors and for the millionth time Jongdae thought they looked good together.

So he told him. “We look good together,” Jongdae said, and the little smile on Yixing’s face made Jongdae break into a grin.

“Of course we do.” Yixing stepped back and hopped on his toes. “I want to dance to something I know. Put on that D∆WN song I like.”

“Ohh, Serpentine Fire?” Jongdae grabbed his phone and sat down on the floor. “I gotta go to Soundcloud for that one.” He pulled up the song while Yixing twirled around lazily. Jongdae pressed play and glanced up to see Yixing bobbing his head back and forth to the layed beats of the song. He looked goofy for a while as he thought, but when he began to dance his movements looked much more controlled and deliberate. His feet moved quickly and accurately as he skipped around.

Jongdae stared, speechless, and when he caught his open-mouthed gape in the mirror he laughed. “Jeez, how do you do that off the top of your head? It looks like you’ve danced to this before, it’s polished,” he said.

Yixing took a moment to respond to him. “Ahhh, I’ve got some stuff in my head, since I’ve heard this song before so many times.” He spun around, landed on both feet confidently, and then kept grooving to the electronica. “My mind is always moving when there’s music on, you know.”

Jongdae wanted to fuck him and his brain. He crumbled to the floor. “God, I love you so much.”

“Love you too. Ahh, come on, get up,” Yixing ushered Jongdae to his feet, and put his hands on Jongdae’s shoulders as he rose. “What do you think you could learn?”

Jongdae snorted. “Show me how to move both feet at the same time and not fall over.”

“Ahaha, a modest start. Alright.” Yixing stood there silently for a moment, like he was buffering, and then he burst out laughing. “How about some footwork. I’ll teach you the running man since that’ll be hysterical.”

Jongdae groaned at his words. “Oh god, you’re just trying to make me into a circus monkey.”

“Heh, it’ll be cute.” Yixing stood in place and then slid one foot behind him, bounced on it, and then alternated feet. He did a few more times and then stopped. “It’s just that. You don’t even have to move much, you’re supposed to stay in the same place and just slide your foot behind you.”

Jongdae blinked, and thought that it didn’t look too different from the stupid hopping he had been doing earlier. He tried to slide his foot back and jump back into place and then glanced up at Yixing. “What?”

“Hah. That wasn’t horrible. Make sure to bend both of your knees when you’re doing it.”

Jongdae bent his knees and tried to slide his foot back, and he moved both of his feet at the same time instead of just one. He stumbled a bit and stuck his arms out to balance himself. “Shit.”

“Lift the knee on the leg you’re moving back up higher than your other leg,” Yixing advised him, and Jongdae replicated the same exact movement he had done before. He was impressed with Yixing for not bursting out laughing at him. Jongdae scowled at himself and kept doing the movement, probably incorrectly, but Yixing didn’t stop him so he was willing to do it over and over.

“Here, watch me,” Yixing said after a moment, and Jongdae was happy to stop since he felt like a fool. Yixing did the movement slowly, to let Jongdae see how to move his body, and Jongdae admired how controlled his actions were. He tried it again, then again, then again, and when he watched himself in the mirror he thought he looked like a complete flailing idiot.

Apparently Yixing did too, because after a while he laughed and grabbed Jongdae to hug him. "Oh my god, you’re so cute bouncing around like that.”

“It really doesn’t look that different from my hop dancing, does it?” Jongdae pouted at himself. Yixing only responded with a laugh.

“Well.” Yixing laughed again. “It’s a really stupid looking dance to begin with, so I kind of set you up for that. But it’s like basic footwork so if you get it right you could learn a lot of other things.”

“Ugh.” Jongdae thought his expression in the mirror looked constipated and he tried to stop it. “I have two left feet.”

“There are so many things you're good at...” Yixing moved his hands to Jongdae’s hips and moved his face in close. Jongdae smirked at him. “...this is not one of them.”

Jongdae didn’t fight a growing grin. “I'll have to get good at it so you can get back to thinking I'm perfect."

“Hah! Okay!” Yixing showed all his teeth as he smiled and Jongdae found him handsome. Jongdae was happy that Yixing thought he was good at anything at all, since Jongdae had felt like such a useless dunce lately. Jongdae nudged his cheek against Yixing’s face and Yixing kissed him once and then stepped back. “Try it again.”

Jongdae didn’t really want to, but he knew he wouldn’t improve without practice. He tried to dance for ten seconds more before he heard the door behind them open and he whipped around to see Minseok coming back into the room.

“Hey, you having fun?” Minseok asked them, and Jongdae put his hands on his hips and whined in his direction.

“I can’t do a running man, I can barely walk,” he told Minseok. Minseok laughed airily as he threw his shoes off by the door. He made a quizzical face as he walked up to them, probably questioning the strange music Jongdae had put on, then it faded and he sat down on the floor a few feet away from them.

“Show me what you’ve learned,” Minseok requested.

Jongdae groaned unhappily and swatted Yixing’s shoulder. “Do it again.”

Yixing did the shuffle and Jongdae was amazed at how he could replicate the same exact movement over and over again without missing a beat. Jongdae huffed and tried to copy it slowly.

Apparently the slow movement paid off because both Yixing and Minseok exclaimed happily at him. “You did it!” Yixing said. “That’s almost right!”

Jongdae laughed dryly, amused that ‘almost right’ was enough for him to get praise. He tried it again, slow as before, and didn’t manage it. “I guess I can only do it once per day,” he said. He didn’t want to give up so easily though, so he did it again, and again, until he tripped over his foot and fell down to the floor.

He wondered why he wasn’t engaged to Minseok when Minseok instantly scrambled over to him and asked him if he was okay while Yixing laughed wildly. Jongdae scowled at everything and pushed himself up into a sitting position, and hugged his knees to his chest. “I’m fine, it didn’t hurt,” he told Minseok, even though he could feel a bruise forming on his knee already. Yixing covered his mouth with his hand while he laughed and Jongdae glared at him.

The look made Yixing soften and sit down on the floor. “Sorry, that was just, that was cute. It happens to all of us, seriously.”

“I still fall over all the time,” Minseok added.

Jongdae huffed. “Wow, really?”

“Don’t worry about it babe,” Yixing told him. “You’re just starting out, it’d be weirder if you _didn’t_ trip all over your feet.” He reached over to ruffle Jongdae’s hair and Jongdae felt his glare leaving.

“Yeah, alright. I think maybe I wasn’t meant for this,” Jongdae sighed. “I’m a musician. I should write the music that you dance to.” He put his hand on his face, thought for a moment, and then clenched both his hands into fists and wailed. “I can’t help but want to be good at this, though! It’s just who I am! I can’t start something and not see it through, ugh.” Jongdae went limp facedown on the floor and Yixing put his hand back into Jongdae’s hair.

“So what’s your new place like?” Yixing asked Minseok casually, and Jongdae swallowed thickly. He had a guess what direction Yixing wanted to take this in and he was mostly sure he wasn’t going to be delicate.

“Ohh, it’s so small. Like ridiculously small. I like that though, I don’t have a whole lot of things to fit in there, so it’s not a problem. It’s cozy! And it’s easy to clean.”

“Mm, it doesn’t get lonely?” Yixing asked.

“No, not really. Well, I’ve kind of been entertaining the idea of getting a cat. Having a pet would be nice...” Minseok trailed off and Jongdae pushed himself up to sit so he could gape at Yixing, hoping that if Yixing felt eyes on him it would stall him.

Yixing didn’t notice anything. “Cats are good. They’re easy to care for.” Yixing blinked. “You and Chanyeol had dogs, right? Or just one dog?”

Jongdae wanted to die from the awkwardness, even though Minseok didn’t look bothered. He was in awe of how his lover could be so deliberately tactless yet still have some whisper of a plan. “Yeah, Chanyeol has a dog, Toben,” Minseok said simply. “I think I might like dogs more than cats, but it’s so difficult to give a dog everything it needs living in the city. Toben had to be taken out all the time.”

“How’d you decide who got the dog?” Yixing prodded more.

Jongdae saw Minseok’s hand start to rub up and down his arm and he almost jumped to knock Yixing over and shut him up. “Xiiiing, leave him alone,” Jongdae whined.

“Whaaat? I’m just curious,” Yixing finally glanced over at Jongdae for a short, tense moment, then looked back at Minseok. “I barely know anything about this breakup.” Minseok cocked his head to the side and Yixing just stared at him. “It’s human nature to wonder what’s going on with my friends, right? I don’t mean anything bad by it.”

“Mm, I know, it’s okay,” Minseok told him. “I figured it would cause...ripples. Within our friends.” Minseok’s agile eyebrows jumped once. “Maybe I was expecting more drama. Nobody has come to fight me, and you’re among the firsts to ask me about it.”

“Well you became kind of hard to reach,” Yixing said. Minseok blinked, and Jongdae noticed that with a breath, Minseok shrunk somewhat. “That’s alright,” Yixing followed up, “since it was the right decision for you.”

Minseok thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he replied. “For some reason, it feels better to be alone right now. I needed time for myself. I still do. I feel like I don’t...” He trailed off and pursed his lips, searching for words. “I haven’t been able to...” Minseok sat up a bit and blinked at Yixing. “It’s been so long since I...did exactly what I wanted to do. You know what I mean? Sorry, that took a while.”

Jongdae nodded, absorbing his words. “I get it,” Yixing told him with a little smile.

“I’m still...” Minseok raised his hands to motion frantically around his head. “It’s all a mess. It’s taking time for me to get used to everything, even though it was...what I wanted to do...” Minseok sighed. “It’s hard to explain.”

“That’s fine.” Yixing said blankly, and then looked over at Jongdae and quirked his eyebrow. Jongdae squinted at him to tell him he was on his own here. He wanted to tell Yixing to not dig any deeper but he couldn’t say anything with Minseok right there. It would be so easy to look at Minseok and change the subject, but Jongdae couldn’t do that, not when Yixing looked so awkward for once.

“I hope I don’t sound callous,” Minseok said.

“Oh no, not at all.” Yixing shrugged. “Shit happens,” he said indelicately, and Minseok laughed.

“That’s the truth.”

“You should get a hamster. You look like a hamster,” Yixing joked, and Minseok laughed again.

“I do not! I look like a cat, that’s why I’m destined to get one.” Minseok sighed softly. “I’ve never bonded with a cat. I think I’m due.” Jongdae let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, glad that they seemed to be moving away from the invasive questions.

“Go to the pound and let one of them choose you, it’s the only way,” Yixing said, and Minseok laughed again. Jongdae looked in between them laughing, a little baffled at how that had turned out okay. There had been stumbles but Minseok didn’t look uncomfortable anymore; they seemed to be in the clear. Yixing had never lost his ability to talk himself in and out of everything.

Jongdae’s anxiety had converted into antsiness and he rubbed at his face for a moment more, then hopped back up on his feet as he felt a new rush of energy surge through him. “I’m going to make this dancing thing work. Don’t underestimate me. Yixing you should choreograph something really easy and videotape it and I’ll try to learn it.”

Yixing let out a puff of a laugh and stood up next to him. “Alright, I can do that. That might be easier for you to learn than trying to watch me in person. I used to learn things from videos all the time.”

Jongdae turned around, pointed a finger at Minseok, then carefully thought about what words to choose. “So I guess we’re getting a membership then. I know this guy wants one, he just hasn’t said it yet. I hope it’s not that expensive.”

Minseok stared at him with a blank doofy smile on his face. “It’s not... it’s not that bad. I’ll try to get you guys a discount, since you kept me sane at Galaxy.” Jongdae glanced over at Yixing, wasn’t able to read his expression, and cleared his throat.

“I’ll pay for it...” Jongdae grumbled, and Yixing shrugged at that.

“Okay,” Yixing said. Jongdae pumped his fist at the victory, then remembered he had no consistent income. He blinked. He would have to... get a life. A life outside of his music, maybe. He could do that. It sounded awful but he could do that.

“I need a job, huh,” Jongdae sighed.

Yixing cackled. “Yeah.”

“Minseok, I don’t understand life after a strip club,” Jongdae complained, and Minseok’s gums showed as he laughed. “How am I supposed to regroup?”

“Baby steps. Maybe get a job in a bar or something?” Minseok shrugged. “Or you could wait tables like everybody else.”

“Ohhhh my god.” Jongdae put his hands on his face. “At least then I’d be a real New York transplant.”

“Just keep it in mind,” Minseok shrugged. The song playing from the speakers switched over to something new and Yixing leapt to his feet when he recognized it. Jongdae watched him dance fluidly for a moment, felt inadequate, and plopped down on the floor, self-conscious.

“You’re never gonna learn to dance if you don’t try,” Yixing told him.

Jongdae sighed. “I know. I think I should just watch you for a while.” Yixing quirked an eyebrow in agreement and Jongdae had to laugh once at his goofy face. He sighed, then saw Minseok’s legs spread out in front of him, so he leaned back and rested his head on Minseok’s shins. Minseok patted his head gently and Jongdae smiled. “I missed you,” he told Minseok.

“Aww, I missed you too. I missed seeing this dork prance around like no one’s watching,” Minseok motioned up at Yixing, who was certainly dancing like he was the only person in the room. Jongdae laughed and felt comfortable in his spot. He glanced up to Minseok, who wasn’t looking at him, and he wondered if he was ever going to get a full story out of him. Jongdae didn’t want to force Minseok into anything, but he couldn’t help being intrigued. Oh well. They had started to pick at him today and hopefully after some more pestering they could get farther.

After a minute Yixing twirled to face them and reached both hands out to grasp at the air. “Come on, get off your cute butt.” Jongdae blinked up at him slowly, not wanting to embarrass himself more than he already had. He made a grunting noise and then rolled on the floor when Minseok slipped out from under him to go over to Yixing. Yixing laughed airily at him and greeted him with a bow.

“Dance battle!” Jongdae snickered.

Minseok wiggled his agile eyebrows at Yixing, challenging him. “I could take you,” he said easily.

Yixing laughed and waved his hand at Jongdae. “Take notes,” he said, and as soon as he started to move the music changed from electronica to one of Jongdae’s classical piano songs. Minseok laughed some more as Jongdae thumbed around his phone.

“Sorry, this playlist is all over the place,” Jongdae excused himself.

“No, I like it, keep it on,” Minseok said as he began to trace his toes on the soft floor. Jongdae watched his feet move around delicately and found the movement distracting. He watched Minseok twirl around to the sweeping twinkle of the piano, and thought that maybe _this_ was something that would keep his attention.

The concept of dancing to piano made his heart throb romantically and he clutched at his chest. “Ahhh, Minseok, that’s beautiful. Minseok wins.”

“Unfair!” Yixing croaked. “I sleep with the judge and this is what I get?” He tried to make his tricky footwork fit the song and Jongdae thought he looked ridiculous. He laughed happily at the sight of Yixing bouncing around and clapped for him. He noticed Minseok’s happy, gummy face as he twirled around, and sighed fondly.

Maybe Jongdae had bitten off more than he could chew. Minseok seemed fine, but he had a melancholy air about him that Jongdae couldn’t help but notice. If he needed help adjusting to his new life then Jongdae figured he and Yixing could be there for him. It would be kind of weird to juggle Minseok and Chanyeol at the same time but Jongdae hoped it would assist him in understanding what the hell was going on. He felt himself getting lost in thought and sinking closer to the ground. He watched Minseok spin around on one talented dancer foot and melted on the soft studio floor. He didn’t noticed Yixing stepping towards him. “You alright?” Yixing asked. Jongdae stretched his arms out and nodded slowly, and let him know that just watching them dance around made his limbs feel tired.


	3. divina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my gOD i’m so sorry this took a literal half a year to produce. i wrote the first draft of this chapter last november and when i came back to it i tore it to shreds and had to redo a lot of things. this chapter is so fcking long and the more i look at it the more i want to scream asdfghjkl i hope it keeps your attention. i’m truly so grateful for your continued interest in this fic and i want you to know that i’m always rereading your comments, like constantly! they make me like this fic more and they inspire me a lot. you’re the absolute best. ♡♡♡♡♡
> 
> the song for this chapter is divina by toro y moi, it’s the vibe i pictured the first song jongdae writes in this chapter as. it’s all kind of where he is in his head, and i feel like it incorporates all the instruments of this chapter. toro y moi inspires me a ton when i’m writing for mr bird behavior lol. also, since i feel like there are a lot of mood changes in this chapter, any song or artist i mentioned in it can count for the soundtrack
> 
> i’m going back to college again starting next week so all my fics might start coming much slower, sorry!! but exo comeback season always re-energizes me and it’s coming soon so hold onto hope lololol. ok i hope you like this! thank you so much for finding this page ^^

In the span of a week, Jongdae had managed to finish a single song with his piano and synths, and he wanted to take pride in it even though his brain was telling him that it wasn’t enough. He had been struggling to write lyrics for it, and didn’t want to settle for calling it an instrumental. He had liked writing instrumentals in the past, but in this moment, it felt like a cop-out. This sucked so much. He sat in his bedroom, playing the audio file he had created on repeat until he was completely sick of it. It was atmospheric and slow and more interesting than anything else he had managed this month, but listening to it made his heart hurt.

Jongdae was holding himself to impossible standards, and he tried to absorb that thought in order to give himself a break. He had finally managed to create something, after a long period of silence. He went out into the main room after Yixing left for work, and he left his laptop and keyboard in the bedroom, wanting to give his work some space.

He had the piano stuck in his head, and he was unable to escape. He probably shouldn’t have listened to his song on repeat for hours. Jongdae turned on the XBOX, lacking in any other ideas, and tried to fool around on Yixing’s Skyrim file until he realized he had absolutely no idea what he was doing and would probably fuck up Yixing’s progress in some nonrecoverable way. He exited the file and created his own, got about an hour in, found it too boring to continue, and turned it off to play the soccer video game.

He lost three matches in a row and decided today was not his day. As he thought about how much he sucked, he was struck with the reminder that he was supposed to be looking for a job. Ugh. The least he could do would be to find his resume on his computer and update it, since he hadn’t done that since he graduated college.

Jongdae fetched his laptop and brought up his resume, and once he had finished updating his previous work experience, he fell asleep on the couch to the sound of the FIFA game’s main menu music. He woke up when he heard Yixing come into the apartment, and when he realized what time it was he cursed out loud, irritated with himself for sleeping for so long.

“Hahahah, I love you too,” Yixing lilted, charmed by Jongdae’s greeting. “I was wondering why the lights were on in here.”

“I must’ve fallen asleep around ten, I wasn’t planning on it,” Jongdae said as he pushed himself up and turned the XBOX off. “It’s like four in the morning?”

“It’s a little after five,” Yixing told him, and he dropped his bag down at Jongdae’s feet. Jongdae grumbled and hugged his knees to his chest.

“I fixed my resume,” Jongdae told him, hoping that Yixing would praise him.

“Ahh, good job. You gonna start shopping around for jobs tomorrow?” Yixing stretched his arms out above him as he spoke.

“Yeah, maybe.” He huffed at the idea, and then reached for his laptop. “Before we go to bed, I wanna show you this song I finished mixing.”

“Oh, awesome! You were productive today,” Yixing said as he sat down on the couch, and Jongdae snorted once, since he didn’t think that was very true at all. He clicked the song on and put his laptop on the table, then threw himself down onto the couch, facing the cushion so he couldn’t anxiously search Yixing’s face for reactions.

Yixing said nothing while the track played, but Jongdae was used to that. Yixing was good at being quiet to experience music and Jongdae loved him for it. When the last couple of piano notes twinkled into silence, Jongdae laid there in the quiet of the room until the suspense made him sit up. “What do you think?”

“My heart feels heavy,” Yixing said slowly, and Jongdae liked that reaction, since it was what he was trying to convey. “I like it though. It’s perfect for five AM.” Yixing blinked and Jongdae thought he looked totally exhausted. He was sweet for humoring Jongdae even after working into the dead of night. “I don’t even know what you used to make those sounds. The synths I guess?”

“Yeah. I think I could get Chanyeol to turn the lower piano part into a bassline.”

“Uh-huh, that would sound good. It’s kinda short though, or am I just half-asleep?”

“No, it’s only two minutes. I don’t know if I should add anything more onto it, I kinda like it the way it is.”

“I like it too. I feel like it slowed my whole world down, in a nice way. It’s good,” Yixing said, and he reached out to trace his hand down Jongdae’s jawline. Jongdae leaned into his touch and smiled.

“Thank you so much.” Jongdae felt more secure in his work after hearing Yixing’s approval.

“I’m proud of you...when you keep at it, you always make such beautiful art.” Yixing’s hand stopped on Jongdae’s chin, and Jongdae felt his heart flutter and leaned in to kiss him. They kissed for a quiet moment and when Jongdae pulled away he put his face into the nape of Yixing’s neck, and laughed when his breath made Yixing jump away.

“Thanks. You always know how to cheer me up.”

“Ahh, I could tell you’re not feeling well from the way that song sounded,” Yixing said.

“I’m frustrated with myself, it took me so long to write just two minutes of music. But now that you’ve told me it’s worth the strife, I feel a lot better.”

“Awwh.” Yixing’s eyes closed as he smiled, and he kept them closed. Jongdae snorted at how tired he seemed.

“Did you have a good night at work?”

“Mhm, it was okay.” Yixing unzipped his bag, pulled out a fistful of bills, and placed them on the coffee table. “Rent.”

“Aaah, good work!”

“I’ll count it in the morning.” Yixing yawned. “I should get ready for bed.”

“Alright baby. I’ll join you soon,” Jongdae told him.

Yixing got up and zombie-walked over to the bedroom door, and turned around to look at Jongdae while he was in the doorway. Jongdae studied his face, and found his sleepy expression so handsome he almost didn’t hear what he was saying. “You did really well today Jongdae, don’t worry about how fast or slow you’re going. As long as you get it done, you’re golden.”

“Gosh...you make me so happy,” Jongdae told him, and Yixing gave him a soft smile. Jongdae felt his heart completely melt, warmed by the sweet words and droopy expression that Yixing couldn’t help but have. For some reason, the dark circles under Yixing’s eyes and the purple eyeshadow on top of them made Jongdae’s brain twinge with inspiration. He looked so tired, and Jongdae wanted to write something that met his mood and comforted him. He felt a tune forming in his head as he watched Yixing go into the bedroom.

After a moment he followed him into the bedroom just to grab his keyboard and bring it out into the main room. He shut off the main lights and went to turn the dim Christmas lights on, and fired up his keyboard to tap out the notes he had thought of. He lost himself in the music, putting together chords and rhythms that conjured up images of cozy beds and soft touches and everything purple, and by the time he had let everything fall off his brain and onto the keys, he noticed the sun had risen high in the sky.

He wasn’t tired, since his nap earlier had pretty much turned into a full night’s sleep anyway. He played back everything he had recorded onto his laptop - about a minute and a half of raw material, with a few odd patches here and there, but nothing he couldn’t work out after he thought about it more. He felt _buzzed_ , totally excited that he had managed to write a second song, and that it even sounded quite different than the one from before. He always thought he got his best work done when the inspiration struck him suddenly, instead of trying to force it. He saved the file as “lavender.wav” and went into the other room to join Yixing in bed, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to sleep, but not caring at all, since he felt so weightless and satisfied.

He didn’t play the new song for Yixing when they woke up together, since he hadn’t finished it yet. Throughout the day he tried to clean it up, and he thought that maybe he should play it for Jaehwan and Chanyeol when he saw them, even if it wasn’t done, and repeated exposure to it was making him like it less. He wondered when the next time they could all get together would be, and decided that tonight was as good a time as any.

Renting studio time had proven impractical, so Jongdae had been trying to get his band into the habit of rehearsing at their apartments. He managed to get Jaehwan and Chanyeol to bring themselves and their equipment over to his place a little bit before Yixing had to head off to work. He sat them down on the couch in the main room, brought them drinks, and pulled a chair up to the couch so he could have room for his keyboard. Jaehwan chattered about how he thought he was losing his hearing since the bar he worked at had speakers right next to where he spent most of his nights, and Jongdae watched Chanyeol pull his bass guitar out of its case while he listened.

“That’s how I feel every time I’m too close to Chanyeol’s drumkit during practice, hah,” Jongdae told Jaehwan. “It actually gives me migraines.”

Jaehwan made a sour face. “I’m lucky that I haven’t gotten to that point. I get headaches but it’s okay as long as I take something for it.”

Jongdae shrugged. “I guess I’m just, like, genetically predisposed to them or something.”

“That sucks. Let’s call it a night before your head starts to hurt,” Jaehwan jabbed, and Jongdae gave him a hard look.

“Can you please _not_ try to get us to stop rehearsing before we’ve even started?”

“Sorry.” Jaehwan scrunched up his nose. “It was just a joke.” He pouted at Jongdae and Jongdae reached out to grab Jaehwan’s big lower lip in his fingers.

“I don’t have a sense of humor anymore, I’m so worn out,” Jongdae sighed.

“I’m sure I can say something funny enough to make you laugh,” Jaehwan said, and Jongdae laughed once. “There, that’s a start.”

“I’d rather you play something on your guitar,” Jongdae replied.

Jaehwan reached to pull his acoustic guitar out of its case. “Alright, I gotta tune it first.” He plucked a few strings, and Jongdae turned his gaze onto Chanyeol, who had been so uncharacteristically quiet these days that it was starting to become normal.

“How are you doing, Chanyeol?” He asked him, and Chanyeol responded with a heaving sigh.

“I’m here.”

“Let’s try to shut our thoughts off and just play music tonight, mkay? It should be therapeutic,” Jongdae tried, and Chanyeol nodded once.

“Okay. I’ve been writing a lot of my own stuff lately, it’s not in any shape to share, but it’s coming along.”

Jongdae was jazzed at the idea, and he bounced in his chair. “Really? That’s awesome!”

“Yeah. I figure if I keep purging all these thoughts, I’ll feel better eventually.”

“That’s the best thing to do for yourself. Us creative types are lucky, we can turn our sorrow into the most wonderful things,” Jongdae said earnestly, and he rolled his eyes at how Jaehwan let out a hyena-sounding laugh. “Don’t be a douche.”

“I can’t help it, you sound so idealistic. It’s cute, I love you Jongdae,” Jaehwan said with a smile, and Jongdae stuck his tongue out.

“Tune your guitar,” he told him, and Jaehwan continued to do so. Jongdae turned his focus back onto Chanyeol and the shiny black bass guitar he had sitting in his lap. “That bass is so sexy, man,” he told him. “I really want to learn how to play it.”

“I can teach you,” Chanyeol said, and he started to place his fingers on the frets and explain how each movement would affect the sound it produced. It was similar to the way Jongdae taught Yixing how to play guitar, so he caught on quickly. Chanyeol handed the guitar to Jongdae and Jongdae was surprised at how big it felt in his lap.

“Is this another guitar that was made for someone much bigger than me?” He laughed, and Chanyeol managed a tiny smile. “Of course it is, it’s yours.”

“If you’re good at it, we can look into getting you one that fits better.”

“I want to learn this one!” Jongdae started to press his fingers on the frets and pluck strings to hear which sounds would come out. He made himself familiar with which movements would produce which notes, and after a short while felt comfortable with it. “Teach me a rhythm I’d know,” he said as he handed the guitar back to Chanyeol.

He looked over to see Jaehwan staring at him open-mouthed. “I don’t know how you pick this stuff up so fast.”

Jongdae laughed. “I’m just good at it, I don’t know.”

“I think you practice without us and then pretend you know nothing, just to be coy.”

Jongdae winked at him. “You’ll never know.”

“You know this one, right?” Chanyeol started playing the bassline for Smooth Criminal and it was Jongdae’s turn to stare open-mouthed. Chanyeol got ten seconds into the rhythm and Jongdae worried he might be drooling.

“Yeah, that’s one of the most iconic bass riffs ever. That looks way too hard for me!” Jongdae said with a nervous laugh, and Chanyeol’s dimple appeared as he thought up something else.

“That might be a bit too involved for now. Hmmm.” He plucked strings as he thought, and then settled on a familiar rhythm that Jongdae quickly deciphered was The Clash’s Should I Stay Or Should I Go. “This one’s easier, it’s just a couple of notes.”

“Yeah, I know this one!” Jongdae watched Chanyeol for a moment more and then reached out grabby hands. “Let me try.” Chanyeol handed him the guitar again.

“It goes fifth fret, third, then second, I think,” Chanyeol advised him, and after a few awkward starts and restarts, Jongdae got the hang of what he was playing, thankful that it was a song he knew already.

He repeated the line ten times in a row and then whined and stretched his hand out. “You guys have a much easier go of this ‘cuz your hands are a lot bigger.”

Jaehwan laughed. “Your knobby hands aren’t that small.”

Jongdae shot him a look. “I could learn this,” he said, “I could really learn this.”

“But then who would play the keyboard?” Jaehwan asked.

Jongdae sighed. “I wish I had two sets of arms!”

“I bet Yixing does too. Did he leave yet?”

“Nah, he’s still showering, I think.” Jongdae sighed wistfully. “Y’know, I’m good at adapting to playing the correct notes on whatever instrument people hand to me, but I’m still pretty awful at dancing. Yixing has been trying to teach me things.” He handed the bass back to Chanyeol so he could get up and demonstrate what he meant. He tried to replicate the odd shuffling Yixing attempted to teach him at the dance studio, and didn’t stop his feet even when Jaehwan cackled at him.

He saw Chanyeol’s eyebrows curving upwards. “You’re not that bad,” Chanyeol offered.

“Yeah!” Jaehwan stifled his laughter, and waved his hands in front of him wildly, looking like he was trying not to say what he was definitely about to say. “You look like...like you’re having fun.”

Jongdae rolled his eyes. “That means I’m terrible! Ugh.” He sat back down in his chair. “Yixing says I’ll get better with practice but I see no hope for myself.”

“Why do you want to know how to dance all of a sudden?” Jaehwan asked.

Jongdae shrugged. “I don’t know. I just find it fun. It’s nice to dance with Yixing, even if I’m no good at it yet.”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to learn how to dance mere seconds after quitting your job at the strip club,” Jaehwan jeered, “you could’ve worked towards a promotion.”

Jongdae groaned. “Those jokes are so old now! They’re not funny anymore!” Jongdae pouted when he saw Chanyeol put his hand over his mouth. “We’ve been trying to make you laugh all night, and now you laugh at this?”

“It’s just funny to imagine you up there, with like, your mop,” Chanyeol said meekly. Jongdae screeched and Chanyeol tried to neutralize his face. “I won’t laugh at you.”

“No, I want you to laugh, even if it’s at my expense,” Jongdae said.

Jaehwan turned to Chanyeol. “I need to make you laugh, I absolutely have to.”

“It’s kinda hard to make me laugh right now,” Chanyeol mumbled, and Jaehwan scrunched his face up tightly before grabbing Chanyeol’s chin and moving in to kiss his lips. Chanyeol’s eyes widened and he sputtered while Jaehwan pulled away with a shit-eating grin, and when Chanyeol saw his expression and glanced over to Jongdae chittering with laughter, he laughed too. “I didn’t say _kiss me_!”

“It worked though!” Jaehwan pointed while Chanyeol’s face stretched in a toothy grin. “There we go! That’s the happiest I’ve seen you all day.”

“You surprised me, you weirdo! I don’t want to kiss you, you’re my best friend, and I’ve seen how you live.”

“It was the most platonic kiss I’ve ever given anyone. A friendly smooch.”

“You’re insane,” Chanyeol grunted, and Jongdae clapped his hands as he laughed.

“You guys are too much. Remind me to never look sad around Jaehwan, or he’ll try to slip me his tongue,” Jongdae chuckled, and glanced over at his bedroom door when he saw Yixing step into the room, looking clean and ready to head out.

“Jongdae, you laugh like a dingo,” Yixing told him, and Jongdae snorted. “I’m gonna go to work. Oh, you guys got here, I figured that’s where all the guitar sounds were coming from.” Yixing scratched at the back of his neck, looking between their guests. “You guys wanna get high?”

“Yes,” Jaehwan spouted, at the same exact time Chanyeol said “no.” They glanced at each other and Jaehwan laughed at their indecisiveness while Chanyeol gave a bashful smile.

“Ahhh, Xing, you shouldn’t smoke before going to work,” Jongdae said, “you’ll be distracted and get there late.”

“You’re right, you know me.” Yixing snapped his fingers and went back into the bedroom.

Jongdae looked back at Jaehwan’s pouting face. “I can get you high later.”

“Alright, I accept.”

Yixing came back into the room with his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you guys later. Chanyeol, are you not coming in tonight?”

“I don’t have to be there for another hour,” Chanyeol told him.

“Cool, cool. Be on time please.”

“I will! I might have to bring my guitars to work,” Chanyeol laughed once, and Jaehwan grabbed his cheek.

“There you go again. I fixed you.”

Yixing quirked a curious eyebrow at Jongdae, and Jongdae let out a puff of a laugh. “Don’t worry about it,” Jongdae told him, and Yixing came over to kiss the top of his head.

“I’ll see you,” he said as he put his hand in Jongdae’s hair.

“Okay! Snapchat me things! I’ll probably just stay here, unless Jaehwan wants to go party or something.”

Yixing pointed at Jaehwan. “You take care of him!”

Jaehwan saluted him. “Yessir.”

Yixing laughed at him and gave Jongdae a little smile before he left. When Jongdae watched the front door close behind him he sighed and got up to bring his keyboard closer to his chair. “Alright, let’s actually get something done, since Chanyeol doesn’t have much time. We can’t record anything ‘cuz the acoustics in here are nonexistent but we can practice.”

Jongdae thought about playing the new songs he had written for his friends, but the more he considered the idea, the less he wanted to do it. He still felt like he had work to do on the songs, and he decided it would be better to finish them up and then email them off when they were done. That way, he wouldn’t catch himself anxiously watching their expressions for reactions. That would be better for his heart. He was able to put himself on autopilot the whole time they were playing, and he lost track of time, so Chanyeol having to leave for work came as a surprise.

Jongdae was frustrated, but the feeling dissipated when Chanyeol told them he had fun, and that he was thankful for their time. He couldn’t be irritated when Chanyeol was finally getting back to his old self. He asked Chanyeol to leave his bass there so he could practice, trying to grab at any chance to be productive. After he left he turned to Jaehwan with a tight face.

“We could keep practicing, or we could get high and play FIFA,” he offered. Jaehwan eagerly chose the latter.

Jongdae lost the rest of the night in a daze, and woke up the next morning to Yixing in his bed and Jaehwan gone. He felt like he had wasted the night. Then he remembered there were guitars and keyboards out in the main room, so he went to go make up for lost time. He wanted to finish the two songs he had written before Yixing had to go to work again.

Yixing came out into the room around two, and Jongdae didn’t look up from his keyboard, but pulled one of his headphones out. “Hey, go eat. I made rice.”

“My master chef,” Yixing said tiredly as he plopped down on the couch. “I’m not hungry.”

“Nnh, go eat anyway. I was slaving over the rice cooker all day.”

Yixing laughed. “If cooking rice requires day-long rapt attention, that’s more of a you problem than a me problem.” Jongdae laughed too and shook a hand at him.

“Be quiet. I’m trying to focus, I’m in a really good groove right now,” Jongdae said, and he put his headphone back in. He spent the next couple of hours cleaning the tracks he had recorded and ignoring Yixing moving around him, and once his head started to hurt from being forced to listen to the same four minutes of music on repeat, he saved his files in the highest quality they could be, and pushed his laptop away from himself. He took his headphones out and looked over to Yixing on the couch, who was playing on Jongdae’s DS console. “Hey, that’s my game.”

“Your Pokémon like me more.”

Jongdae snorted. “I think I’ve cleaned up these demos enough. I’ll send them off to Jaehwan and Chanyeol later...” He stretched his arms behind him while he yawned. “Damn! I think I exhausted all my creative power for the day. I don’t want to look at this piano anymore.”

“Then take a break.” Yixing motioned at the bass guitar that was leaning on the coffee table. “Did Chanyeol leave this here?”

“Oh, yeah, I wanted to practice more.” Jongdae moved to pick it up and sat down with it. “Listen to this.” His fingers fumbled on the strings shortly before he remembered what Chanyeol had taught him, and he repeated the riff a few times.

“That’s The Clash,” Yixing said happily.

“Yeah, Chanyeol taught me something from _your_ time!” Yixing stuck his tongue out and Jongdae laughed. “I think I could get the hang of this.”

“That’s awesome. You sound great for your first time.”

“Thanks!” Jongdae put the guitar down. “When are you leaving for work?”

“I don’t have to go into work ‘til nine tonight, and it’s onlyyyy...” Yixing left Jongdae hanging while he went over to the coffee table to check the time on his phone. “It’s only five! It’s almost five, at least. Let’s maybe go dance?” Yixing glanced over at Jongdae with an excited look in his eye, and Jongdae found him adorable.

“Okay, sure,” he replied, and he watched Yixing save his game. “Did you work on choreographing something for me?” Jongdae laughed.

“I meeeean...” Yixing paused. “Maybe. You need to learn how to like, move your feet first.”

“That’s true.” Jongdae let out a laugh. “Are you still gonna try to get me to dance like you, though?”

“Yes, of course. Let’s get those happy feet moving.” Yixing gave him a dimpled smile and Jongdae found him adorable. He dashed into the bedroom to put on a pair of shorts, since he remembered how restricted his movement had been the last time when he had worn jeans.

The cab ride was becoming familiar. Yixing texted Minseok to tell them they were almost there, and then declared to Jongdae that that was his way of skipping the front desk and hopefully any payment. When they made it to the studio Minseok was sitting in the lobby, and Yixing went over to talk to him while Jongdae explored the building in search of the bathroom.

When he came back into the lobby there was nobody there, and Jongdae made his way towards the studio room they had used the last time they were there. As he walked down the hallway Minseok exited from another room and then pointed an accusatory finger at Jongdae when he saw him. Jongdae whipped around so he could point his finger back at him. “What!”

“Give me twenty dollars!” Minseok said as he walked up to him, and he held his hand out as Jongdae groped around his pockets for his wallet. He was glad to find he actually had the amount Minseok requested and he handed the bill to him pleasantly.

“Shouldn’t it be more expensive than that?” Jongdae asked.

Minseok waved the bill at him. “Just enjoy it for as long as I can get away with charging that.”

“Hah, okay!” Jongdae gave him a huge grin. “Next time make Yixing pay, alright?”

Minseok laughed. “Sure, sure. I’ll see you, I have lots of work to do tonight, but you go have fun in there. It’s a Galaxy party tonight,” he said as he walked off, and Jongdae blinked after him as he wondered what that meant. He turned the doorknob and started taking his shoes off as he walked through the door.

His old coworkers Tao and Sehun were sitting with their legs crossed on the middle of the floor, talking animatedly to Yixing who was somehow already laying facedown on the floor, and Jongdae made a happy sound upon seeing them. “I should’ve known that’s what Minseok meant.”

Jongdae looked down at Yixing to see his little smile and he was caught off guard by Sehun jumping to his feet and rushing over to hug him. Jongdae let out a breezy laugh and held him close for a moment. “Hi there, it’s been _weeks_ ,” Jongdae said sardonically.

“I know right! I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” Sehun responded, not picking up on the sarcasm. Jongdae just grinned at him and leaned on Sehun’s broad shoulder. He studied Tao on the floor, took in his loose pants and leopard print t-shirt, and thought he hadn’t seen Tao this dressed down in a long time. That wasn’t something he could say out loud, though, he figured Tao would surely deck him for it.

Sehun wrapped his arms around Jongdae and Jongdae wondered when Sehun had gotten so _big_. “I think that every time I’ve ever seen you, like in the entire three years I’ve known you, you’ve looked taller or wider than the last time I saw you,” Jongdae told him.

Sehun laughed and bounced on his feet. “I’m not really growing anymore though, once I hit twenty-one I think I stopped. All my clothes from five months ago still fit.”

“Good, I hope you stop growing, or else you might become a monster,” Jongdae said, and as he started to wriggle out of Sehun’s grasp Sehun dropped his arms and ran onto the black floor, then slid on his socks past Yixing and Tao. Tao cackled at him and Sehun scrambled in place for a moment before flopping down next to him.

“We were like, about to leave, but then you guys got here,” Sehun said. “I didn’t know you came around here, Jongdae.”

Jongdae put his hands on his hips and walked over to them. “Don’t I look like a dancer?”

“No,” Sehun laughed easily. Jongdae bounced on the balls of his feet to the quiet hip hop music playing from the speakers and he noticed Yixing sit up and smile upon seeing him. The expression made Jongdae’s heart flutter a bit and he thought himself silly and warm.

“I’ve never seen you in a snapback before,” Yixing said to Tao, “but this one has actual bling on it and it’s so tacky it’s perfect for you. I like it.” Tao made a sour face at Yixing like he was going over all the ways he could reply to that in his head, and Jongdae jumped in when he saw the chance.

“Is it ‘cause your hair looks weird?” He asked, noticing the sort of off-blonde tufts sticking out of the hat.

Tao scoffed at him. “You guys walk into this room that I paid for and then come for me.”

“C’mon Tao, let us make fun of you. This is the only time I’ve ever seen you not look flawless,” Jongdae told him. Yixing gave him a closed-eye thumbs up and Jongdae stifled a snicker at it. Tao considered the words with a little smile on his face.

“Yeah, I’m only wearing it ‘cuz my hair is... not up to par right now. It’s like, orange.”

“Tao, why is your hair like, orange.”

“It’s the worst in-between color, I’m dying it red tomorrow,” Tao said, and he took his hat off and ran his hand through his feathery light orange hair. “I had to bleach it like, four times today, it suuuuucked. And I ended up leaving the salon looking like this anyway,” he rolled his eyes. “It’ll look like hot fire when it’s all done though, you’ll see.”

“I’m sure I will,” Jongdae said as he bounced back and forth on his toes. “I spend so much of my life scrolling through Instagram, aagh.” He danced around and then stomped his foot once on the floor out of habit. “Come on, someone dance with me.”

Sehun instantly rose to his feet and went over to Jongdae with his arms outstretched, then he held him close and started spinning him around. Jongdae laughed as he was squished up against Sehun’s chest and he tried to wriggle free. “This isn’t dancing! I feel like I’m on an amusement park ride, put me down!”

Sehun let him down once he complained and Jongdae stuck his arms out at his sides to get his balance. Sehun laughed giddily and then started shuffling around on his feet, and Jongdae watched his movement closely and then tried to do it too. His feet seemed to move at half the speed of Sehun’s, and he quickly gave up trying when he saw himself looking uncoordinated in the mirror.

“How do I do that?” He implored Sehun, and Sehun started twitching around on his feet a bit slower.

“It’s liiiiiiike. You move your toes, then your heels, then your toes again.” He moved slowly in the way he described, and Jongdae figured that if Sehun looked stupid doing this then he himself was going to look like a disaster. “Here, have your feet next to each other,” he said, and when he moved his hands to Jongdae’s hips he only touched him for a moment. “Wow, your hips are so slim, you’re tiny Jongdae. Mkay, move your toes out diagonally.” Jongdae wasted no time blushing over Sehun’s remarks and gentle touches, and he moved his feet. “Yup, that’s right! Now move your heels out.” Jongdae followed, and then moved his toes out more, and dropped down to the floor, but not without making it apparent to everyone in the room that he was _not_ falling and instead sitting down of his own volition.

“You guys make it look so effortless, ugh, the struggle is real with me.”

Tao laughed at him. “You’re an indie baby with an acoustic guitar, you’re not meant for this.”

“Got that right,” Jongdae said with a scowl. He rose up to try and move his feet again, and he completed the steps Sehun had detailed very slowly. Then he motioned down at Yixing. “He’s the baby with a guitar, he’s gotten better than me at it.”

Yixing smiled contentedly. “Jongdae’s just taking up dance to give people something to look at when he’s singing in a bowtie on the street.” Jongdae couldn’t even be offended by that quip, he was so desperate to perform again that the idea even sounded somewhat enticing.

He pointed at Yixing. “You have to sit behind me and play guitar, though.”

Yixing laughed. “I have shit to do.”

Jongdae bit at the air in his direction. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m sorry, I’m always just kidding baby.”

Sehun reached out to squish Jongdae’s cheeks together in his hands. “Dae-bby.” Jongdae burst out laughing and cringed at the same time.

“That’s horrible. Don’t say that.”

“Really? You've never heard that one before?” Sehun let go of him and stood up, then motioned for Jongdae to get up with him.

Jongdae stretched his legs out as he rose. “I really don’t think I’ve ever been called that.”

Sehun snorted. “I came up with it myself.” He did the little footwork movement he had tried to teach Jongdae, his feet moving a bit faster than Jongdae thought he could manage. “Try it again. If you can learn this part then you can do it over and over and over again and you’ll be shuffling around. Footwork is key.”

Yixing laughed and caught Tao’s attention. “He said shuffling. That’s so funny. I was going to try to make Jongdae dance to that LMFAO song later.”

“I can hear you,” Jongdae laughed.

Yixing shrugged. “You can crush your running man to some trash music.”

"That's the most obnoxious idea I've ever heard. I reject it. Do better!" Jongdae grinned and watched Sehun’s movement in the mirror. He repeated it himself tirelessly until Sehun exclaimed happily that he was doing it right.

“Nice! Okay, here’s a new part.” Sehun tried to get Jongdae’s attention but Jongdae was busy spinning in a circle and celebrating his newfound competence. Yixing laughed and clapped for him.

Jongdae shot him with a finger gun. “I’m coming for you, twinkletoes.”

“Get outta here,” Yixing jested.

Jongdae shook his excitement from his limbs and then turned back to Sehun. “Alright, what’s the next part? You’re better at teaching me than he is,” Jongdae motioned over his shoulder at Yixing.

Sehun laughed once. “That’s ‘cuz I’m always trying to teach Junie things. Mkay. Do the toe-heel part but just those two steps.” Jongdae followed instructions and Sehun did it too to catch up to him. “Good. Okay, now go up on the tip of your shoe. Like this.” Sehun angled his left foot up so that his foot was at a right angle with the ground. Jongdae posed his foot up and didn’t know how to balance himself, and Sehun’s mouth fell open. “Ohh, don’t put any weight on the foot you lifted up. Lean your whole body over on your flat foot. Yeah, that’s right. Shift all your weight over on that foot. And make sure your flat foot’s pointing out too.”

“So both my feet have to be doing different things at the same time?” Jongdae sighed at the concept. “Alright. I’ll get it.” He kept trying and found that he had already lost the steps. “Do it again,” he asked of Sehun, and Sehun repeated the movement. Then Jongdae sighed. “Can you show me what it’s supposed to look like from someone who can actually dance?”

Sehun chuckled and then shuffled his feet around. He made it look impossibly simple even though Jongdae knew there were steps to it. “I’m gonna be doing this everywhere for the rest of the week,” Jongdae said, feeling vexed. “At least I don’t go very many places anymore.”

He attempted to move his feet carefully, but they weren’t moving in the way that his mind wanted them to. He wobbled and caught himself before he fell, and he let out a breathy sigh and then scrunched his face when he heard Yixing and Tao snickering at him. “Stop it,” he said to them, “we were all tadpoles once.”

“It’s cute,” Tao replied, “the eagerness to improve makes it even more precious.”

“Okay let me tell you about the most annoying and sexiest thing in the world,” Yixing said. “Jongdae can pick up any instrument he wants and declare ‘I’m gonna learn how to play this’ and then be great at it in like, a week. It’s insanity. It makes me so jealous. But now here he is flailing around and tripping over his own feet, damn, it’s good to know there is some equilibrium in the world.”

Jongdae burst out laughing, finding him endlessly amusing. “You are so fucking goofy.” Yixing just winked at him.

“So Jongdae, you’ve been working hard on your band stuff lately?” Tao asked him.

Jongdae sighed just thinking about it. “I’ve been writing things. Jaehwan writes a lot but he doesn’t share all of it. _I’m_ writing crumbs. And I’m trying to have at least one session in this room where I don’t trip over my own feet.”

“Jongdae’s gonna get a job playing the jaunty organ in a baseball stadium,” Yixing said, and Jongdae barked laughing at the idea.

“That sounds fun, to be honest. Do real people still do that? Or is every sound controlled from a tech booth behind the scoreboard?” Jongdae shook his head as he laughed. “Back in high school there was this Unitarian church that paid me to play at their services, I hated waking up that early, though.”

Tao pulled a face. “Sounds dreadful.”

“Ohh, it was nice. Beautiful building. The acoustics were nuts.”

“Hunh.” Tao sounded like he didn’t care and for some reason it made Jongdae feel fond of him. _Damn, I must really be rotting without my job if I feel sentimental over Tao tuning me out._ He told himself he simply loved his friends and the idea made him smile.

The music playing over the studio speakers ended, and Sehun bobbed his head back and forth before breaking out into something that looked choreographed. He moved his arms across his chest, then moved and twirled in a way that Jongdae couldn’t entirely follow. He blinked dumbly at Sehun and thought he looked impressive dancing to silence, and he studied Sehun’s lips mouthing out beats.

“You’re a good dancer,” he told Sehun after a moment. Sehun smiled at the praise and kept spinning. “Did you choreograph this?”

Sehun laughed once. “Nope, it’s from a kpop group.”

“Sehun spends his time learning kpop dances and forcing me to watch,” Tao said.

“It’s a lot easier than choreographing something myself, whuh. I have no teaching at all.” Sehun’s arms followed their predetermined movements and then he stopped and snapped his fingers at Tao. “Tao, put on Love Paint, I think my phone’s still connected.”

“Ahh, okay.” Tao groped around the floor for Sehun’s cell phone and picked it up. “This caseless phone. What a dangerous thing. I feel like I’m holding a newborn.”

“I can’t put a case on it, it has engraving on the back. I’m carefuuuuul.” The song Sehun requested started to play through the speakers and he suddenly snatched himself still and started to move to the beat. “This song doesn’t have a whole lot of stuff to do to be honest, there’s a lot of backup dancers so it looks weird by myself.” Sehun bobbed his head side to side. “There are some dances that are really hard! I don’t have the time to learn them all.” He sighed and spoke as he kept moving, like he was going through motions he had practiced many times before.

Jongdae crossed his arms and watched Sehun in the mirror, then studied himself standing there in his shorts. He thought his knees looked knobby. He studied all the legs in the room and compared them to his own, and found that he was at a disadvantage just from there. No wonder he wasn’t good at anything yet, his body was like a bean on toothpicks. “I need legs to be able to do this,” Jongdae said to the couple on the floor. “I can’t balance my feet right ‘cuz my legs can barely hold my weight for that long.”

Tao laughed. “You make yourself sound like you’re going to break in half at any point.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“You’re nowhere near as fragile as you think you are,” Yixing reminded him, and Jongdae blinked back, then smirked and looked back into the mirror.

He tried replicating the graceful movements Sehun made, and he looked convulsive and silly. It distracted Sehun away from what he was doing enough to laugh. The chorus of the song played and Jongdae recognized Sehun repeating some of the choreography he had done before. Yixing stood up and went over to Jongdae. “Show me that little shuffle Sehun taught you. You look better at that than anything I taught you.”

“Sehun doesn’t make fun of me when I flop around,” Jongdae said, and then he tried to get his feet to move in the way he wanted them to. He remembered the order of the movements and he did them slowly.

Yixing reached out and wrapped his arms around Jongdae’s head to hold him close to his chest. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound like I’m making fun of you. I think everything you do is charming, okay.”

“I bet you do.” Jongdae spun in a circle and then did his awkward foot motions again. No matter how many times he did it, he couldn’t make it look nice. “I look like a spider who’s learning to walk.”

“You do not.” Yixing watched Jongdae’s feet for a moment and then did the movement back and forth.

Jongdae stared at him, his mouth hanging open, and then he whined. “That’s discouraging. You make it look cool.”

“You’ll get there eventually. Just keep trying.” Yixing moved away and then turned around to watch him from behind. He looked into the mirror and Jongdae caught eye contact with him in their reflections. Jongdae stared at him, and then broke into his awkward crab walk again.

Yixing put his hand over his mouth and laughed, and Jongdae felt giddy too. He tried doing his dance back and forth to the beat of the song playing over the speakers, and when he was finally getting the hang of it Sehun stopped dancing and went over to Tao to take his phone back. He shut the song off and Jongdae whined, then he laughed and turned it back on. “Sorry,” he said, and he plopped down on the floor next to Tao and rested his chin on his shoulder. “You’re boring.”

“I spent like four hours in a hair salon today,” Tao groaned, “I’m high off bleach fumes. I’m all up in my head.”

“Look at Jongdae, I have him dancing,” Sehun said as he hugged his knees to his chest. Jongdae laughed once at the comment.

“I’m not dancing, I’m becoming a crab.” He spun around and pointed at Yixing, tired of watching him in the mirror. “Dance battle. You and I. My crab arts against your unstoppable hips.”

“Crab arts!” Yixing laughed loudly. “I don’t think I stand a chance against that. You have too much raw, unrestrained talent.”

“First one to fall over loses.”

“Any person who has spent more than a half hour with Yixing knows that the quickest way to knock him over is to breathe on his neck," Tao pointed out. Yixing snorted with laughter at the callout.

“Oh I know that.” Jongdae put his hands on his hips and cocked an eyebrow at Yixing. “You’re stronger than you think.”

“I’m not discrediting myself at all. You’re dangerous. You could just flash your shiny nipples at my eyes to blind me,” Yixing said dryly. Jongdae fell to his knees in the middle of the floor, laughing his ass off since that was the strangest sentence he had heard all day, and when he noticed Tao and Sehun staring at him Jongdae went completely limp on the floor.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Sehun laughed.

“Do you have superpowered nipples that we don’t know about?” Tao followed up.

Jongdae gave Yixing a half-cringe half-smile for getting him in this situation, then he sat up and faced Tao and Sehun. “No, I just got my nipples pierced like, half a year ago.”

Tao gawked at him and Yixing cackled loudly at the expression. Sehun scrambled up onto his knees to sit up too and he pulled his t-shirt up over his abdomen. “I have a piercing too! I got it recently!” He exclaimed. Jongdae observed the little silver bar adorning Sehun’s navel and he smiled at him.

“It’s fun to decorate yourself like that, isn’t it?” Jongdae laughed. “Your piercing looks nice.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait a sec,” Tao started, “you got piercings a while ago? So you had your nips pierced when you were working with us and you never showed us?"

Jongdae snorted. “Yup, I guess that’s true.” Tao scrunched up his nose like this had been a deep betrayal.

“Can we see ‘em?” Sehun asked, and Jongdae almost guffawed at the stars in his eyes. Jongdae considered it, noticed Tao raising a single eyebrow at him, and then glanced back to Yixing. Yixing was just standing there with a smarmy smirk on his face and his arms across his chest. Jongdae found nothing helpful there so he looked back to his friends and lifted his shirt up to his shoulders.

He wasn’t prepared for Tao and Sehun to immediately start howling at him, and as he fell onto his back on the floor laughing he found the sound of Yixing’s continued cackle amusing. “Oh my god, Jongdae,” Tao called out the second he saw his chest.

Jongdae sat up to look at him and smiled breathlessly. “Yeah?” Sehun reached out to grab at his shirt and Jongdae batted him away, then lifted his shirt up by himself.  They’re shiny, huh?”

“Oh, yeah, your nips look really cool, but I was looking at your glorious fuckin’ happy trail,” Tao said. Jongdae barely had time to let out a sheepish laugh before Sehun was hollering.

“You’re so fuzzy! You got so much fuzz there, Jongdae!” Sehun beamed and Jongdae laughed awkwardly, unsure if this was praise or not. He looked down at himself and still thought the piercings were the most impressive part of his chest. He was so used to seeing the hair on his abdomen every day he never really thought about it, but now he was studying himself and he thought he looked hairy compared to the smooth-looking men he used to see all the time.

“It looks hot,” Sehun sang, a huge smile on his face. He scooted over and reached his hand out to rub Jongdae’s abdomen up and down and Jongdae jumped a little to accompany a squeak. He heard Yixing laugh over his shoulder and he rolled his eyes.

“Sehuuuun, that tickled,” Jongdae claimed as he slapped Sehun’s hands away from him. Sehun laughed and moved his hands away, but kept his eyes trained on Jongdae’s chest.

“That’s good shit. Don’t shave that,” Tao told him. “I shave mine for work but I wish I didn’t.”

“Hahahah, I won’t then.” Jongdae pulled a face and dropped his shirt. Sehun reached over again to lift it and touch his abdomen and Jongdae let him do what he wanted, finding him harmless and funny.  
  
Sehun spread his big hand on Jongdae’s skin and patted him twice. “I wasn’t expecting you to have abs like that, hah.”

It was Jongdae’s turn to scoff. “I don’t have _abs_.”

“Okay, but then what are all those abs doing on your abs then?”

Jongdae had to laugh at such a stupid sentence. He looked at himself and found a little bit of definition there, but he hadn’t been actively working to develop them so he had no pride about it. “I guess...I do have abs.” He felt Yixing slip down to the floor and next to his side and he welcomed him when Yixing put his head on Jongdae’s shoulder tiredly. “I don’t really work out and I’ve never been to a gym in this city before so I dunno where they came from.”

“That’s annoying!” Sehun cried. “I’ve been suffering for months and my tum is just squishy.” He lifted his own shirt once more to prove his point and Jongdae thought he looked impossibly slim. Jongdae felt like he now had enough agency to reach out and touch Sehun’s belly, and he let out a little breath when he felt that it was quite soft.

“I mean, you look like you couldn’t possibly lose any more weight or anything. You just have to like, do crunches or sit-ups or whatever.”

Sehun sighed. “I hate working out. So tiring. I’d rather just be soft.”

Tao smacked his arm gently. “Then don’t complain.”

“Shut up, I can complain as much as I want to,” Sehun said, “I have to spend every night with all you perfectly built men _and_ my husband looks hotter than all of them. And now Jongdae’s telling me that sometimes people are chosen by a divine power to have abs.”

“Come on, Sehun, you’re like six foot one,” Yixing piped up, “appreciate what you have.”

Sehun pursed his lips and bobbed his head back and forth, then lifted a hand to scratch two fingers on the back of his neck. “Sorry.” He reached over with a smile and tried to pull Jongdae’s shirt up. “Show me your piercings again,” he said.

Jongdae laughed and held his shirt up so they could see. He saw Tao raise an eyebrow and he tried not to think too much into it, and he yelped when Sehun reached over and tweaked one nipple in his fingers. Jongdae shivered and giggled. He couldn’t think of a time in his life when someone touched his nipple in a non sexual setting. “Those are so cute, they look really good on you,” Sehun told him.

Yixing swatted Sehun’s hand away from Jongdae and Sehun chuckled, then stopped abruptly. Jongdae wondered what kind of look Yixing was cutting Sehun with to make him retreat. “It’s remarkable that you worked with us for so many years and you never had to take your shirt off once,” Tao noted. Then he rose to his feet and wiggled his legs in front of him. “What are we doing? Sehun what time is it, how long do we have this room for?”

“Ohh, I don’t think Minseok told me when we had to leave,” Sehun said as he looked at his phone. “It’s a little after six thirty.”

“Ahhh.” Tao buffered, then sat down. “We should probably go in a bit. You have to shower, you stink,” he nudged Sehun.

“When are you working?” Yixing asked them.

Tao laughed. “Shouldn’t you know that?”

“Shouldn’t _you_ know that?” Yixing countered.

“That doesn’t even make sense. Of course I know when I work.” Tao raised his eyebrows. “Go dance.”

Yixing spun around on his legs and then rose to his feet. “You got it dude.” He tried to jam to the synth playing over the speakers and he shook his head. “Sehun I can’t dance to this kpop shit, put something else on.”

“Pft, alright.” Sehun searched around for a bit, then put on a Janelle Monáe song that Yixing found a lot easier to move to. Jongdae watched him, finding it easy to lose track of his own thoughts when Yixing was dancing around so naturally. Jongdae threw himself down on Tao’s lap and Tao laughed at him.

“You’d probably have a more productive time here if you actually paid for a class,” Tao said, and his hand moved into Jongdae’s hair. Jongdae let him tousle all he wanted and he sighed.

“That’s the problem. I don’t have the money for dance classes.” He pursed his lips. “I’m just doing it for fun, it’ll be fine if I take forever with it.” He blinked at Yixing. “Do the crab legs!” He told him, and Yixing instantly starting doing the little shuffle dance the correct way. Jongdae hissed at it. “You’re the most coordinated crab I’ve ever seen.”

Sehun chuckled quietly. “If you keep calling it a crab dance, it’s gonna look stupid to you even when you do it right.”

Jongdae pouted at him. “But I like crabs.”

Sehun laughed again when he glanced over and saw the face Jongdae made. “Ahh, well then, you dream of being the best crab you can be.” Jongdae noticed how Sehun barely moved his eyes from Yixing while he danced and he found it cute. After a moment Sehun reached into his pocket, pulled out a nickel, and then tossed it at Yixing. It hit him square in his cheek and Sehun guffawed as Yixing grabbed his face and twirled around.

“What the fuck was that?” Yixing cursed and scanned the floor. Jongdae snickered quietly as Yixing picked the coin up and put it in his pocket. “Not even a quarter? What kind of man do you think I am?”

Sehun reached back into his pocket, having to nearly lay down on the floor and squirm about since the fabric was tight, and he pulled several coins out, then threw a dime Yixing’s way. “Take something off,” he commanded.

Yixing scoffed and picked up the dime to pocket it. “No. The minute I start stripping will be the moment Minseok comes in leading a class of tiny ballerinas and I don’t want to get a life ban my second day here.”

Jongdae bubbled with laughter and pushed himself up onto his ass. He looked at himself in the mirror and tried to fix his hair back into place. “Are you guys hanging out with Minseok much lately?” Yixing asked their friends without taking his eyes off of himself in the mirror.

“Not really,” Tao said. “It’s not easy to keep up with everyone who’s run off.”

“That’s right,” Sehun said, “I feel like I haven’t seen Jaehwan in weeks.”

“I see Jaehwan all the time,” Jongdae brought up. “He’s doing.” He paused. How the hell _was_ Jaehwan doing? He was charming and weird like he always was, but he was moodier than usual, and that made Jongdae think he wasn’t doing great.

“Who’s he doing?” Sehun asked.

Jongdae snorted. “Sorry, I didn’t finish that sentence. He likes his new job a _lot_.”

“Ahh, that’s good,” Tao said. “Jaehwan would thrive anywhere he could mix drinks.”

“True.”

“I thought Minseok was the most elusive, but then we started coming here.” Tao shrugged. “He’s always working when we’re here, at least. He seems happy.”

“I wanna pick his brain,” Yixing said. “I need to get myself alone with Minseok, so that I can bother him more about Chanyeol.”

Tao cocked his head to the side. "What do you want to hear Minseok say about Chanyeol?"

“I don’t think I’ll know what I’m looking for until I hear him say it. Well, I want to hear his perspective on what happened. The events that led to them breaking up, maybe. I’m nosy about it, I guess because I’ve been friends with both of them for years, and this whole thing seems kind of...out of character for them?” Yixing sighed and stopped twirling around. “ Makes me realize how little we really know about what’s going on in the private lives of our friends. They broke up and got back together a few times, yeah. But this time seems permanent. I just want to know whatever he’ll tell me.”

“Huh.” Tao’s mouth was open as he considered Yixing’s words. “Well, good luck.”

“Pfft. Thanks.”

Jongdae thought to ask Chanyeol how he was doing at work, then remembered that he didn’t work at Galaxy anymore. “Oh my god, I keep forgetting I’m jobless,” Jongdae spoke aloud, and Sehun laughed.

“I bet if you come to work and ask Kris if you can clean things, he wouldn’t stop you.”

“Oh I don’t doubt that,” Jongdae said, and he heard Yixing titter with laughter. He watched Yixing roll around on the balls of his heels, then walk over towards the door.

“Hey Jongdae, your shoe’s ringing,” Yixing told him, and Jongdae squeaked softly and got up to pick up the cell phone he had left in his shoe.

Jongdae looked at his phone and laughed when he saw Junmyeon had sent him a message. “Sehun, I just got a text from your husband.”

“Pfft, really?” Sehun made a happy sound. “What does it say?”

Jongdae read the text out loud. “I just instinctively swallowed a tiny cup of mouthwash like it was a shot. I haven’t taken a shot in months. My brain is fucked.” Jongdae grinned over at his laughing friends and he liked how Sehun covered his face with his hands.

“Ohh nooo... he’s done that before.” Sehun chirped out a laugh. “I hope he doesn’t throw up again.”

“Oh yikes, does that make you throw up?” Jongdae’s mouth hung open. “I don’t think I’ve ever swallowed a lot of mouthwash. At least not enough to make me sick.”

“Yeah, it’s definitely not supposed to be swallowed. Ahhhh...” Sehun stared blankly at the floor and twiddled his thumbs in his lap. “Ahh gosh.”

“Hey, Sehun, I doubt he’s really suffering if he’s texting me about it as a joke.”

“Yeah, seriously, if anyone can take a blow to the liver it’s Junmyeon,” Tao said.

Sehun laughed once. “That’s not funny,” he said quietly, a second after laughing. Then his shoulders dropped and he looked at Tao. “I wanna go home. I gotta get nice and clean for work anyway. I need to see if Junmyeon just poisoned himself.”

“He’s so dumb,” Tao sighed and stood up. Jongdae instantly pattered across the floor to take Tao into a hug and Tao laughed as he stumbled backwards. “Aw, cute. You guys gotta come out drinking with us sometime.”

“Okay, sure,” Jongdae said.

“I spend enough time with you guys,” Yixing groaned, and Jongdae let go of Tao to turn around and frown at him.

“I don’t see them anymore though,” Jongdae said. “Come on, Yixing, I quit my job and this is our life now.” Jongdae meant it as a joke but Yixing made a tight, wide-eyed face and Jongdae didn’t like the way it looked. Luckily it only played on Yixing’s face for a second and Sehun pulled Jongdae into a warm, somewhat sweat-smelling hug that kept Jongdae’s mind occupied.

“Bye Dae. I’ll see you around.”

“Mhm, good to see you. Please take care of Junmyeon, he needs it.”

Sehun snickered happily. “He sure does.” He hopped over to Yixing and tried to hug him, and laughed more as Yixing wriggled around to avoid him but wasn’t able to break free from Sehun’s long arms. “See you in an hour.”

Yixing laughed. “Yeah, I’ll see you.”

As Tao was putting his shoes on by the door he pointed at Jongdae. “My hair’s gonna look awesome tomorrow, so you guys have to erase my appearance today from your brains. Okay? When I walk outta the room it better be, uhh,” he clicked his tongue and waved his hand, “gone. I’m gonna look like an awesome bird of prey.”

Jongdae cackled easily at him. “Alright, alright, I believe you. It better look good, ‘cuz you need it.”

“Fuck you,” Tao said affectionately as he opened the door. “See ya,” he said, and Sehun scrambled out the door after him, the heels of his feet pushing down on the backs of his shoes.

Jongdae looked over at Yixing. “Those two are too much.”

“And I gotta spend the rest of the night with them.” He laughed and then shimmied his way over to Jongdae. Jongdae thought he looked goofy and tried to paw him off, but Yixing threw his arms around Jongdae’s shoulders and kept him there. “We could learn how to ballroom dance or something, I bet you could figure that out.”

“Ahaha...” Jongdae leaned his forehead on Yixing’s. “Maybe once we have a wedding set up.”

“That’ll take years. Let’s try to do it before Tao’s wedding.”

“Ohh, it wouldn’t be fair of us to dance better than them at their own wedding, though.”

Yixing scoffed. “We’ve already won, Tao’s other half is Kris.”

“He does have two left feet.” Jongdae rested his head on Yixing’s shoulder and bumped his feet around as Yixing made them wobble back and forth. Jongdae breathed in his scent and hummed softly. “Kris is gonna make you his best man, isn’t he?”

“Oh god.” Yixing paused and Jongdae assumed the realization was crashing down on him. “Oh god you’re probably right. He hasn’t mentioned anything like that yet but oh god.” Yixing looked pained and Jongdae put his hands on the back of his head to run his fingers through his hair.

“Relax, you’ll probably be good at it. I mean, I don’t know what best men really do. You might have to plan a party or something?”

“What?!” Yixing bounced on his toes and complained. “I can’t do that. Tao’s friend better help me. Shit, now I don’t want Kris to label me anything. I have to make him hate me, fast.”

Jongdae chuckled. “I think you’ll have to give a speech, too.”

“Oh _hell_ no.” Yixing stepped away from Jongdae and Jongdae laughed at his flailing. Yixing’s mouth hung open like he had tasted something terrible. “I’m not giving a speech. In front of people? About Kris and Tao? I’ll just roast them the whole damn time.”

“That would be good! That’d be funny! You’re supposed to be entertaining, and Yixing, you’re naturally entertaining as fuck. I don’t think you have anything to stress about.”

“That’s _right_ because we’re just speculating.” Yixing sighed. “Ugh! If Kris is stupid enough to make me give a speech at his wedding, he’ll deserve whatever bullshit I come up with.”

“Hahahah, that’s the spirit.”

“Do your lil dance again,” Yixing told him, and Jongdae had to think for a moment before he remembered what to do. They spent the next hour trying to perfect the movement, and Yixing taught Jongdae a few more simple footwork steps when Jongdae became tired of watching himself look like a crab. Jongdae found each new movement more difficult than the last, and he couldn’t wrap his head around how light Yixing looked on his feet. This was difficult, he thought as he sat down to take a break and watch Yixing dance around. He couldn’t do much of anything lately.

...that wasn’t entirely true. He had written two songs, even if he wasn’t crazy about them, they had at least fallen off his brain and onto his computer. Maybe he could obsess over them enough that he liked them. He was so caught up in his head he didn’t notice Yixing talking to him. “Huh?”

“Should we go? There might be a class in here at eight or something. I should get ready for work.” Yixing peered at himself in the mirror, and Jongdae studied the drops of sweat that had collected around his collarbone before he responded.

“Alright, sure. Sehun taught me a new technique and I’ll be trying to master it all week.”

“Good, the more you practice, the better at it you’ll be.” They put their shoes on and left the building, and when they were out on the street, Yixing turned to Jongdae. “You got kind of quiet all of a sudden.”

Jongdae shrugged. “I’m just thinking myself into a whirlwind, like always.”

“Don’t do that. What are you worried about?”

Jongdae sighed. “My music, and how I suck at dancing.”

Yixing pulled a tight face that made his dimple appear. “You’re better than last time. Hey, you’ve been to this studio twice. You’re not going to get better overnight.” Jongdae glanced away and Yixing clicked his tongue. “Ahh, look at me.” Yixing grabbed Jongdae’s chin and angled his face back to him. “Don’t worry about your feet. They’ll catch up to your brain someday. Write a song about how much you hate dancing and make it easy to dance to and it’ll all clear right up.”

Jongdae laughed once, and thought that was a pretty good idea. “Okay, I can do that,” he said, sounding a bit more cheerful. Yixing gave him a little smile, one that scrunched his eyes up tight, and Jongdae found him incredibly comforting as he turned around to hail down a cab.

They climbed into the first cab that stopped, and Jongdae stared out the window for a while. He noticed his legs were already starting to feel sore and he stifled a groan. He didn’t want to think about it, he wanted to channel all his frustration into a song. “Remind me to send those tracks I finished to Jaehwan and Chanyeol when we get home,” he told Yixing, who jerked his head up like he had dozed off.

“Alright. I want to hear them again.”

Jongdae hadn’t actually played the song he had written about Yixing for anybody yet, but it seemed about time. “Okay, you can hear them first.” It made sense that the object of his music would hear his songs first. That way if he hated them, Jongdae could scrap them and start anew. There probably wasn’t any way Yixing could hate the songs he wrote, though, he hadn’t ever rejected something before.

They sat in silence for a while, but it wasn't uncomfortable, it never was. “Thanks,” Jongdae told him after a long while, because he was grateful for all Yixing had done. It didn’t occur to him that Yixing didn’t know what he was thanking him for until the word was out.

Yixing just gave him another dimpled smile. “You’re welcome.”


End file.
